The Daily News. SATURDAY, MARCH 25. A SECRET ACTION.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 261, 25 March 1911, Page 4

The Daily News. SATURDAY, MARCH 25. A SECRET ACTION.

The other day Sir Kobert Stout, Chief Justice, had a certain case before him in the Supreme Court at Wellington. A section of the public was aware that the action was pending, of the date of the hearing, the names of the parties, and so on. The public was not permitted to know the result of the action or any particulars concerning it. That, however, is not the chief point. The newspapers send to the hearing of Supreme Court cases men of discrimination. This is, we believe, the first time on record' where a Judge has taken the extreme course of refusing admission into his' court of any newspaper reporters. The usual course in a case where a Judge deems it in the interests of the public to withhold information, is to indicate his wishes after the admission of Press people, who may, however, remain if they are disposed. The Chief Justice, in this particular case, not only forbade the admission of reporters, but forbade the publication of the names of the parties to the action, or any reference to the cause whatever. There is, one would think, no possible reason why any Judge should select—even if he has the legal power—certain litigants for the exercise of this judicial but injudicious clemency. If the Chief Justice had ruled —and generally Judges with tact "request"—that as the publication of evidence that might have been adduced was against the interests of public morality, the Press, of course, would have obeyed the judicial behest. The general public, in this case, does not know whether the withholding of every tittle of information was 'in the interest of public morality or in the interests of the parties to the suit or of those who might have been subsequently involved as a result of the publication of the facts. Even if the public were protected by the extraordinary action of the Judge, this is insufficient ground on which to base his insistence that absolute and total secrecy shall he observed. The race to which we belong fought long and bitterly for the publicity that the Chief Justice of Xew Zealand has denied. We know, of course, that although no statute law exists giving power to Judges to hold a Star Chamber sitting, their discretionary powers have been very wide, and their actions in prohibiting publication of specific particulars condoned because of the trust the people have placed in their hands. We know, further, that disobedience of a Judge's injunction not to publish—although lie is empowered to make the injunction by custom and not by law—might result in a case for contempt of his court against the disobedient scribes. But in this cafe, which is without precedent, at least in Xew Zealand, the Judge gave the scribes no chance to disobey, by merely closing the doors in an arbitrary manner on them. Whatever are the facts of the case, and whoever the parties to it may lie protected by the action of the Judge, the public of Xew Zealand is entitled to feel alarmed. The Judge has shown that there is no such thing as "the sovereign people." and that, although he is a servant of the people, he owes no duty to them and can conduct his business in secret and in what manner he likes. Having decided that in one case he may wipe out every chance of publicity by a single dictatorial action, he, and presumably his brother Judges, may set up Star Chambers on anj. 'uture occasion. If the parties to the suit secretly hoard by the Chief Justice of New Zealand are protected by his Honor, there is no reason why future litigants shall not lie protected in a like manner. In prohibiting the presence of newspaper men, the Chief Justice necessarily held that the newspaper men would have found something to report

had they obtained entrance. In closing the doors on them 'lie showed distrust of the Press, which is the safeguard of the public and of the Chief Justice. In denying pressmen the right to be_ present, the Chief Justice assumed that any request he might have then made for non-publication of matters that, might have had a bad effect on the public would'have been taken no notice of. We are, therefore, entitled to conclude j that the case was of deep public inter-1 est, that the reason for forbidding pub--1 lication of any facts or names was not by way of protecting the public, and that if the parties to one suit arc to be protected, the parties to future suits should be given the right to a secret hearing, too. We do not know anything about the case or the names of the parties, but we do know that a trusted Judge has established a vicious precedent. Such a proceeding might be very complimentary to the influence of litigants in a case or to people whose names might ultimately he in the public eye as a result, but Sir Robert Stout's action is not only a stab at the "freedom of the Press," but a blow at the "sovereign people," who can no longer be sovereign if their servants rule.