The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 7. IMPERIAL COURT OF APPEAL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 204, 7 December 1910, Page 4

The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 7. IMPERIAL COURT OF APPEAL.

At the next Imperial Conference the question of the constitution of an Imperial Court of Appeal may be discussed. The apparent necessity of such a Court is that matters of purely colonial interest, having be«n decided after careful deliberation by the Supreme Court judges of oversea dominions, have yet been referred to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, The colonial contention is that although the famous judges who comprise the highest tribunal in the Empire are the most experienced jurists available, they do not understand the local conditions prevailing in the countries from whence the cases come. The fact that in numerous oases the Judicial Committee has reversed the decision of colonial Appeal Courts has, naturally enough, piqued colonial judges, and the idea that an Imperial Court of Appeal shall succeed the historic method of deciding the cases on appeal of rich litigants is the reason for the desired reform. One may take the liberty of believing that on matters of fact, law and evidence the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council is more likely to come to a just decision without knowledge of "local conditions." It is presumed that our ever-varying statutes are available to their lordships, that in reversing a decision, say, of the New Zealand Court of Appeal in the Newtown licensing case, the committee would still have decided similarly even if they had visited New Zealand, and that the evidence and facts adduced in London are precisely the same as if they were adduced in Melbourne, Capetown, Ottawa or Auckland. It must have struck the average reader that the most difficult element in the formation of an Imperial Court of Appeal would be that of obtaining jurists who would be satisfactory to the people of the dominions. Appeals to j, the Privy Council are not particularly frequent in matters of colonial law. It would be an excessively troublesome and expensive proceeding to induce eminent jurists from each of the dominions to go to London to form a Court, and to ask them to "stand by" in order to decide any cases of appeal that might come from overseas. An Imperial Court of Appeal, should it be set up in order to heal the pique of colonial judges whose decisions had been reversed by the greatest jurists in the Empire, would necessarily be a Court of sinecurists. One may admit that it is possible to send from New Zealand a legal luminary who is the intellec- ., tual equal and is trained to the same high standard as any one of the lords of the' Judicial Committee. Such a jurist would obtain a seat on the Imperial Appeal Bench because of his special knowledge of New Zealand law, the ambitions and desires of New Zealanders, local conditions, and all the rest of it. He might have to wait for years before any litigant in New Zealand took a case on appeal to the Imperial Appeal Court, where, it is presumed, his local knowledge would be the deciding factor. The demand for a representative Court in London is an accusation that the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council is not capable of dealing with colonial matters. Counsel are always informed of the facts, and presumably the facts might be as easily absorbed by the trained English mind as by the trained South African intellect or the brains of an Australian judge. It is to be believed that if an Imperial Court were formed in London fewer decisions of colonial judges would be reversed? On the other hand, the litigant in the colonies who has noticed that the Privy Council so frequently reverses the decisions of colonial courts, might, if he thought

the constitution of a new Court would alter this, be more inclined to take his case to London. Appeals to the Privy Council are the luxuries of the rich. The constitution of a Court composed of sinecurists from all over the Empire could not in any sense improve the position of the colonial litigant of moderate means. The eminent jurist of whatever country is a busy man, and it would be difficult to obtain the services of colonial representatives who would have to cool their heels in London waiting for a job on which to fasten their special talents. In the constitution of such a Court, it would perhaps be possible to gjve colonial members a Home circuit to keep them from getting rusty between the cases. The New Zealand representatives would have no more special knowledge of South African affairs than one of the lords of the Judicial Committee, and the Canadian representative who helped to thrash out an Australian problem would have no unique qualification for the job. While appeal to the highest Court of the Empire is available, litigants with money to burn will probably burn it whether the case is heard by colonials in London or law lords in London. Appeal to Britain is in essence an accusation that colonial judges are not infallible. Why their infallibility should be doubted it is 'hard to understand. It is impossible to believe that colonial judges sitting in London would alter their viewpoint or would, helped by colleagues, see colonial matters of fact in an entirely different light. New Zealand makes its own laws, and plenty of them, and it is hoped that in the far future it will get permission to make just one more, in order that disputes between New Zealand litigants may be begun and ended here without reference to either English or colonial judges in London.