THE “OBSERVER’’ CASE.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXVII, Issue 36, 13 October 1913, Page 6

THE “OBSERVER’’ CASE.

[Per Press Association.! ■i. ■ * *** Wellington, Octfiber 13. The contempt of Court case against Messrs Geddis and Blomfield, oi the Auckland “Observer,” is being continued before the Full Bench today. ‘ Mr Cotter, for Mr Blomfield, resumed his address. He said he knew of no case in Great Britain where a cartoon bad been the subject of any motion to a Court, and in no circumstances could a cartoon be treated as contempt of Court. The “Observer was not a serious, publication, and j should not bo taken, as seriously asj other publications. The only case in which a cartoon figured in Australia had been dismissed. The case is proceeding. x The Solicitor-General, in a concise reply, said the right of fair comment was undisputed, but fair comment was not defamatory libel, and this cartoon was not fair comment. He held that there was no such thing as discretionary jurisdiction. He could not imagine- anything more grotesque and subversive to the administration qfi justice than taking criminal proceedings in a case of libel on a Judge, who would first have to lay an information before a Justice of the Peace. The Judges oh the Bench here interjected : No, no. Dr. Salmond: Well, he could go to a policeman and the policeman would go to a J.P. Judge Williams: A Judge might lay a charge of libel against himself, but in this case if there was a libel it was undoubtedly, a libel on the Bench. The Court intimated that it would take time to consider its decision. Mr Cotter, in concluding, submitted that the Court would not hold it neces- ’ sary for the support of its authority, 1 and for the first time in the country’s history, to exercise this antiquated, 1 if not obsolete power, nor that the ’ exercise of tins power was still required to keep a blaze of around ‘ the persons of its judges. Rather, he urged, would it hold in these ' modern times that»a blaze of glory was 1 more appropriate to the soldier than even to the statesman. The blaze of glory would lie appropriately replaced and represented by a halo of righteousness and justice produced and reflected in and by the sacred light of an educated anil enlightened public opinion, ' which is the most sure and lasting •' foundation not only for security and s respect for the throne of the monarch hut for the seat of his Judges. 1 After the Solicitor-General’s reply • tho Court reserved decision.