The Oamaru Mail. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE NEW ZEALAND AGRICULTURIST. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 1880.

Oamaru Mail, Volume IV, Issue 1199, 19 February 1880, Page 2

The Oamaru Mail. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE NEW ZEALAND AGRICULTURIST. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 1880.

To lay a charge of incompetency against any public officer is a task that few journalists care to undertake, unless there arc good and important grounds upon which to base the charge. Delicate as the operation may be in ordinary casc3, it is rendered even more so when the officer in question Ls one entrusted with the administration of law. It is always a dangerous proceeding to create a doubt in the minds of the public as to the ability of those sitting in judicial positions to perform wisely their important duties, and we therefore approach our present subject with a feeling that we have undertaken more thau ordinary responsibility. We would fain let it pass unnoticed were it not that we feel that by adopting such a course we should be goHty of a dereliction of duty. In the interests of justice, we must draw attention to the very patent incapacity shown by the junior Resident Magistrate of Dunedin. Within the past few days Mr. Isaac Newton Watt, who presides over the Metropolitan City Police Court, ha 3 given fresh evidence of a fact that has been painfully apparent ever since his appointment—that he is woefully ignorant of the law that he professes to administer. To commence with, Captain Drew, of the schooner Aw.irua, was chaJged with a breach of the law by catching seals out of season. He was convicted upon the charge, and Sir. Watt, apparently through his ignorance of the law, committed him to take hi 3 trial. A day or two afterwards it was discovered that Mr. Watt, in doing so, had overstepped his power —that he should, instead, have enenforced the penalties under the Act; and the case fell through. Again, in the Police Court yesterday, another offender managed to get off scot-free in consequence of what we will term Mr. Watt's judicial eccentricities. A man named Henry Epps was charged with a breach of the Fisheries Act, in that he had been guilty of fishing in a creek for trout with a net. Mr. Watt could not permit himself to look beyond the second section of the Act, and as this did not apply to the case, he discharged the accused, totally ignoring the fact—upon which he seems to have been culpably ignorant—that provision is made in the seventh section that entirely nicet3 such a case as Epps'. Thus two offenders have within a few day 3 escaped the vengeance of the law ; not because they were proved to be innocent, but because the magistrate entreated with the hearing of the informations was oblivious of his duty, and, some people think, too opinionated to seek advice or take time to look sufficiently fully into the matter. Were these the first occasions upon which Mr. Watt had been at fault, they might have been passed over, with an expression of hope that in future he would exercise a little more care. But they are not isolated instances of the magisterial of which Mr. Watt has been guilty. His whole career upon the IJeuch has been marked by what has too closely resembled overbearing fcilicionsnes?, incapacity, lack of a proper amount of dignity, and ignorance of the law he is paid to administer iu the interests of the public. We are not concerned only for the escape of two offenders; the matter ha 3 a wider bearing than that. May we not fairly assume that a want of legal knowledge in a magistrate that leads to the escape of transgressors against the law may also lead to the punishment of innocent persons or the too severe punishment of the guilty! A magistrate who, through ignorance or other causes, is prone to commit more thau a reasonable amount of errors, cannot be expected always to do so on the side of mercy. We do not say that innocent persons have suffered at the hands of Mr. Watt, but there is, I we maintain, a possibility of their doing so. lAs this is a contingency that should by ! any and every means be guarded against, we have a right to prote3t against the honor and liberty of the people being placed at the mercy of men whose liability to err, from whatever cause, stamps them as pre-eminently human. Were the Dunedin City Pulice Court one of equity Mr. Watt might pass muster, though we should like to have some proof that he is endowed with ordinary common sense before offering an opinion 011 that point. It is, however, a court of law and justice, and Mr. Watt, though he may strive to be just, has proved himself to be incapable of reading aright and properly administering the law. When Mr. Watt confessed in court, at the conclusion of one of the cnso3 we have alluded to, that he had made a mistake in giving his decision, he involuntarily confirmed the opinions which have often been expressed regarding his intermittent if not chronic incompetence.