Samoan Chiefs Have No Right of Appeal

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 220, 6 December 1927, Page 15

Samoan Chiefs Have No Right of Appeal

CHIEF JUSTICE’S DECISION

SENTENCES TO STAND Press Association WELLINGTON, Monday. In the Court of Appeal, before the Chief Justice, Sir Charles Skerrett, and Mr. Justice Sim this morning, an application was made by Sir John Findlay, K.C., and with him Mr. Harding, on behalf of Fuataga and Tagaloa, the two Samoan chiefs who had been sentenced to sis months’ imprisonment for a breach of their banishment orders, for leave to appeal to the Privy Council from the judgment of the High Court of Samoa. Sir John Findlay said that he had come to the conclusion that on the proper construction of the Samoan Act, 1921, there was no right to appeal from the decision of the Supreme Court of New Zealand in any matter brought before it from the Court of Samoa, and that therefore he would not carry the application any further, bu' If the court should come to a different conclusion then, on its merits, he submitted that leave to appeal to the Privy Council should be granted. Mr. Michael Myers, K.C., and with him Mr. Currie, who appeared for the Crown, said that there was no right of appeal to the Court of Appeal of New Zealand, and, therefore, by a necessary implication, the court had no jurisdiction to grant leave to appeal to the privy council. EXPIRATION OF SENTENCES As far as the merits of the case ■were concerned, he submitted that leave should not be granted, as in any case, the sentences would expire before the case could possibly be heard by his Majesty in council. Sir Charles Skerrett said that it was unnecessary to decide whether there was a right of appeal or not, because the court was of the opinion that even if there were such a right it should not be granted. Appellants had not made out a case in which an appeal should be granted, if for no other reason than because the sentences would expire before the question could be determined. The motion was therefore dismissed. Mr. Justice Sim concurred in the judgment and had nothing to add.