DEFEATING THE LAW.

Patea Mail, 5 December 1881, Page 1

DEFEATING THE LAW.

It is not a little strange how some legal authorities contrive to defeat the law they are appointed to administer. A man had got his name placed on the electoral roll for an electoral district at or near Ashburton, under the residential qualification, whereas objection was afterwards raised and proof given that he had not resided six months within the electoral district. Mr Beswick, R.M., is reported to have said that he could not strike this name off the roll without the man’s consent, although the misrepresentation as to residence was proved ; that a name could be struck off the roll only in case of death or with the written consent of the person registered. This is a queer reading of the law. It affirms the absurd principle that a name being once improperly put on the roll, it cannot be struck off, although the Act distinctly provides that R.M’s shall be the revising authorities. Thus a Registrar is required to place any claim on the roll, if it be attested by one voter; and there would be nothing to prevent collusion to any extent if one voter chose to go round with papers and induce nonqualified persons to go in wholesale for claims to vote in a particular district. Mr Beswick puts himself in another difficulty of his own making, for a man might in this way get his name on more than one register under the residential qualification, and the name being once on each roll, there would, according to Mr Beswick, be no power to strike the name off any of the rolls. Thus a man might be qualified, by six months’ local residence, to vote in several electoral districts. Mr Beswick seems to have stuck at one clause in the Act, instead of reading that clause in connection with others to get a proper interpretation of the whole. The obvious intention of a statute is too often defeated by untrained lawyers trying to construe its spirit by shutting out all its provisions other than the particular clause which they boggle at. An Act is to be construed in a common-sense manner, according to the intention of Parliament. Where that intention cannot be clearly inferred from the general provisions, the Act is presumably unworkable if Its provisions clash. It is not uncommon to find that one or more clauses are obscure. In such cases the plain meaning is to be taken in preference to a strained meaning. Mr Beswick seems to have preferred the strained meaning, in his ruling at Ashburton. The Registration of Electors Act passed last session provides in clause 18 that any name on the roll may be objected to. - Clause 19 says “ The person objected to shall be required to prove his claim to have his name retained on the roll.” The same clause says: “ The case shall be heard and determined by an R.M., and the roll amended if necessary according te such determination,” Thus Mr Beswick has given a decision directly contrary to the plain provisions of the Act. If the R.M. may “ hear ” an objection, if he may “ determine ” it, and if he may “amend” the roll, he has clearly all the powers and instructions which Mr Beswick strangely says he has not.

A case equally absurd, but more ludicrous, has occurred at Napier. There a prisoner claimed to be put on the roll because he had been six months resident in the district, most of that time being passed in prison. His name was actually put on, for the curious reason that residence was not defined in the Act to exclude residence in gaol. This affirms another queer principle, that although a prisoner cannot vote while he is in gaol, and therefore loses his civil rights for the time being, yet he can qualify as a voter by the accidental fact that the law incarcerates him in a particular district. It seems more reasonable to say that the man’s claim was not made out, because il he was not free to exercise the franchise as a resident he was not free to qualify as such while in prison, and was legally jion est during that time.