CORRESPONDENCE.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1106, 26 July 1882, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

[We do not hold ourselves responsible for opinions expressed bp cur TO THE EDITOR. Sib, —I noticed on Tuesday last that you referred to a question which arose in the Resident Magistrates Court with reference to a case which came before Mr Price, the Resident Magistrate. Your remarks on the subject are exceedingly pertinent to the question at issue ; but, to my mind, you do not go far enough. The Court asked whether an application for a rehearing of the investigation of title to Native Lands, puts a stop to all proceedings of the R.M.’s Court in the meantime ? This argument cropped up on Friday last, and although the Bench decided against Mr Robinson, yet, public opinion, on a very careful perusal of that part of the Act which applies to re-hearings in such cases, must, I am of opinion, be convinced of the soundness of that gentleman’s argument. The Act says that on such application to the Court in writing no further proceedings shall Ie taken until such application shall be finally disposed of. It will be obvious that on a re-hearing the original judgment may be reversed, or in any way altered, and the plaintiff, Hoani Ruru, who recovered on a Native Land Court order, may not be in the block at all, or it may be that he will be ordered to pay Nikora, and not Nikora to pay him. I apprehend that an application to the Chief Judge for a re-hearing operates in precisely the same way as an appeal to the Supreme Court from the decision of a lower Court. Such an appeal having been made no Court in legal existence would, until it was actually decided, think of compelling the apellant to pay any order for costs made by the lower Court. In the case under notice Nikora has paid, and if on re-hearing the order be reversed how is be to get his money back I don’t quite see. Although the defendant stated on oath that he had applied for a rehearing and that his application had been acknowledged by the Registrar of the Native Land Court, yet the Bench declined to take that evidence. But surely in many cases we have no stronger proof than the defendant’s oath. What other course was open to defendant ? There is no Native Land Court Office here. There is no official here of whom the fict could hare been ascertained. The defendant could not possibly have produced the records of the Court which are in Auckland, therefore, he gave kha best proof of the application that ho could give, namely, his sworn testimony that ho had made the application, and that the Native Land Court had received it. I, for one, believe tho majority of tho profession are of my way of thinking as to the effect of that portion of the Act which I have quoted, namely, that the application for a rehearing acts as an arrest of the judgment in ioto, and the order for payment by Nikora to Hoani Ruru was a,part of that judgment. Tho decision of the Assessors, that an order fo a Court on a Maori need not be interpreted and that such, service of a document only in the English language is good, is so monstrous and opposed to reason and the practice of every Court that lam astonished at its delivery. I have known so many summonses, writs, judgment summonses, declarations, and the like drop dead at the first fire on account of noninterpretation, tliat the case is past argument. I should like to know if when either of the Assessors is next served with a summons ho will dispense with interpretations, or will ho gently point out to the Court that the process is bad. And will tho Court press on and adjudicate on a summons untranslated p I think not.—’Yours, &c., Censob.