GROSS MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE.

Thames Star, Volume XII, Issue 3793, 23 February 1881, Page 2

GROSS MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE.

(To the Editor of the Evening Star.)

Sib, —I think the English law and custom is, that everyone charged or suspected of a crime is supposed to be innocent until proved to be guilty, i&hm opinion may be formed from the (report you give in last night's Stab of the \jpplication made by the solicitor retained "for the defence of the man in custody (on a charge of murdering a native) to the Resident Magistrate for permission to see him (the prisoner), in company with a person who could thoroughly understand and interpret the prisoner's native language—which application was refused,— then I for one consider such a refusal most monstrous. It may be law, but it certainly is not English justice, and, to my mind, it appears only very bare justice to allow a prisoner accused of any crime, much less of one which, if he cannot refute, his life is forfeited, to hare every assistance to enable him to rebut the charge made against him, and one of the most necessary is that he should thoroughly understand all that is said to him by his solicitor, all that is brought or said against him in Court, and all that he requires to explain or say to his solicitor himself. Yet this one very simple request of an interpreter is refused to the Russian prisoner by the paid dispenser of justice at the Thames, Mr H. Kenrick. The police are assisted by the same EM., and very properly too, with all aids and interpreters necessary to bring home the guilt to some person; but the person against whom the police with these aids and assistances are working, and is in law supposed to be an innocent man, is refused the permission to be visited by one who could by a knowledge of his native language clearly make client and solicitor understand each other, and Buch understanding is certainly most material if a defence is to be anything more than a farce. So far as this murder case has progressed, it has not been conducted as it would have been if any of the previous Thames Resident Magistrates had occupied the Bench at the time of its occurence. It is always the boast of the English nation that if any one is accused of murder he has three Courts and three Judges before whom he can prove his innocence—the Coroner and his Court, the Magistrate and his Court, and the Supreme Judge and his Court; but in this prisoner's case will it be so? First, directly the murder is heard of Mr Kenrick, although there are plenty of Coroners available, ride's off, accompanied by the doctor who is to give evidence and the native interpreter attached to his R.M. Court, to the neighbourhood of the murder, and holds the inquest himself, the prisoner being present in custody, the jury returning an open verdict. Mr Itenrick then drops the Coroner, and immediately has the prisoner brought before him as a Resident Magistrate, sending him on the charge of murder to the Thames, and on this charge he is to be tried before him. Is it possible that he can clear from his mind those impressions that hearing the evidence as Coroner produced —that is, can he take his seat on the Bench on Thursday with his mind a perfect blank so far as any feeling of the guilt or innocence of the prisoner ; if not, and the prisoner is tried before a B.M. predisposed one way or other, then the prisoner certainly loses one out of the three courts before which he has a right to be impartially judged. I consider the action of Mr Kenrick in sitting as Coroner in a case of murder, and afterwards sitting as Resident Magistrate in the same case, a bad precedent, and one that should not be ever again followed. —I am, &0.,

F. C.Dean. Parawai, Thames, February 22, 1881.