MR JUSTICE RICHMOND ON THE MAGISTRACY.

Southland Times, Issue 989, 20 July 1868, Page 3

MR JUSTICE RICHMOND ON THE MAGISTRACY.

In his charge to the Grand Jury at Nelson, on the Ist instant, Mr Justice Richmond said — The disturbances on the "West Coast, which have lately occupied so large a space in public attention, happily require from me no further notice. But in relation to those disturbances there have teen certain official proceedings within this district on which I ieel bound to make some short comment; because those proceedings have betrayed grave misapprehension of the law respecting the conservation of the peace, which it is my duty to correct. In these islands, his Excellency the Governor is the supreme conservator of the Queen's peace ; under Mm — immediately under him (gentlemen, I emphasize the word immediately) — are the Justices of the Peace. Superintendents of Provinces, as such, have no duties whatever in relation to the conservation of the peace, save so fax as the Superintendent's departmental authority over the police gives him some responsibility and concern in the matter. But the duties of a Superintendent in the matter are mere duties of police, and in all considerable emergencies, nay, even in common tumults, the police iv this country, as in England, by whomsoever appointed and departmentally controlled, are bound to act under the orders of the magistracy. Where the Superintendent is on the Commission of the Peace, as he commonly is, his brother magistrates would be likely in an emergency to treat him, if present, as their chief, even though he were not their senior on the commission ; but when acting in virture of his magistracy, the Superintendent could have no authority whatever independent of the General Executive Government of the Colony. Now, I find that the local representative of the Provincial Government at "Wesport has been assuming that he was entitled, in that capacity, to adopt an independent policy in relation to assemblages of a seditious character within the district; to determine of his own authority whether Crown prosecution shall or shall not be instituted against persons charged with taking part in such assemblages, and with uttering speeches of a seditious character expressive of sympathy with the Fenian conspiracy ; and even, seemingly, to reflect upon the adoption, in a neighboring district, under the authority of the Colonial Government, of a policy supposed to be in some respects different from that which he himself had thought it expedient to follow. All these assumptions are mistaken in point of law. As I have shown, even the ordinary duties of the conservation of the peace do not rest with the Provincial Government, much less the direction of the policy of the country in regard to it, at critical times. Much of what Mr Kynnersley did at Westport, he was undoubtedly empowered and required to do, as holding I the Commission of the Peace, but whatever he did in that capacity he should have done in subordination to the General Executive Government, to which it was his duty to refer for instructions. It I makes not the least difference that a magistrate is a stipendiary, whose salary is provided for on the Provincial estimates. Departmental arrangements may exist which pretend to subordinate the magistrate to the Provincial Government, and prescribe correspondence with the Superintendent. All I can say iB, that such arrangements, if they exist, contravene the law of the land. I make these observations purely with a view to point out to the gentlemen on the Commission of the Peace their true relations to the Government of the country, and in order to remove a misapprehension which might obviously lead to very bad results. And now, gentlemen, in concluding this address, I must congratulate you upon the issue of the Colony from these once menacing dangers — a happy result which, we owe to the combinedfearlessnesa and caution with which our affairs have been handled, and above all, to the strong instinct of social order which influences the vast majority of our people.