MR BARTON AND THE JUDGES.

Patea Mail, Volume V, Issue 449, 2 August 1879, Page 3

MR BARTON AND THE JUDGES.

(New Zealander, July 28). The speech of Mr Barton on Friday night, was, in more than one respect, a remarkable utterance. It was certainly the most serious impeachment of the Judges of the Supreme Court ever yet spoken in the Colony. Indeed, we doubt whether in any other part of the Empire a more tremendous series of accusations has yet been made than the member for Wellington vehemently hurled at the majority of the Supreme Court of New Zealand. Mr Barton is a man with a grievance. Nor is his grievance one of the imagination.. He has suffered imprisonment, he has lost his practice, broken in health, if nob in spirit,, he has had to leave his home and cross seas and continents in search of health. It is not wonderful under these circumstances that he should speak with impassioned energy when he accuses those who he believes have injured him so deeply. Xt is not, however, with 3VXr. Barton’s sufferings that we have at present to do. Hi? indictment of the Judges must be answered. If it be false and made without reasonable cause, some method of punishment should be found to deter others from like offences. If true, then justice and the best interests of New Zealand imperatively demand either the dismissal of the offending Justices, or that they may in some way be dealt with so as to cleanse the Bench _ from a stain so dreadful. The charges distinct and clear. The accusations most grave and serious. They may be unfounded or grossly exaggerated. Mr. Barton may have become afflicted with a species of monomania, but the people of New Zealand must demand with imperative voice that a complete and impartial enquiry be held. It is certain that Mr Barton was himself imprisoned in what is said to be an unprecedented manner, and it is also certain that : the Judges when refusing the writ of habeas vorpus, which he applied for, laid claim to powers and privileges which are' absolutely startling. In these days of freedom it is indeed appalling to hear that each Judge of the Supreme Court claims an arbitrary and unconlrolled' power to imprison any of Her Majesty’s subjects for life, without lri.l, without appeal, and without a hope of pardon. We assert that no Judge ...fs _«uch power; that it is contrary to the great charter of our liberties, abhorrent to tf e ideas of free men, and diametrically opposed to English liberty. The worst of English Judges, Jeffries, in the worst hours of English History, never asserted

a right to such an extreme and ..fearful despoiism. But lids is not -the only ilia re -. The case of the wretched and uni;, i>;>y ''•‘oodgate, di m mls.inv sli. ati< n in ll l iy. The lac: that muion.i'e iiy \V. o igate was a wreicii who bn 1 imd the earth eith his pres-nee is nothing to the pir ose. It what. Air Barton asserts actually did take place, then no man's life is safe. If judgements cin bo written by one Judge, and concurred-in by others before argument, all hope of justice is gone. Last but not least, f-omes the notorious Hawke’s Bay commission. Here again wc say that il the facts alleged by Mr Barton be correct, a most fearful blow has been struck at that public faith and confidence, which is the bulwark of the Bench, and the trust and hope of the people. We know that Mr Barton has already appealed for an enquiry and failed, but wc assert that the safety of the public demands an oaxarninaon into pretensions so vast, and powers, alleged, so unbounded.