“TO HELL WITH AW”

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 50, 1 March 1939, Page 6

“TO HELL WITH AW”

Sir,—The refusal of the olicitorGeneral to consent to the iss. o t an originating summons to test th validity of the import control reguitions, has left a nasty taste in the Touths of many people. Technicall. of course, the Solicitor-General is vtthin his rights; the Declaratory Judgment Act, under which the proposed proceedings would be taken does not (nd the Crown. But one cannot disnlss from one's mind the fact that in his matter the Solicitor-General repesents the Attorney-General, who is also Minister of Justice, and tie function of the Minister of Just io should be to promote justice, not t< impede it by blocking the ascertainment of the law. It is true that the Solicitor-Gen-eral's refusal does not entirely block the importers who challenge the regulations from access to the Courts. It is still open to them to defy the regulations, invite prosecution, and plead as a defence that the regulations are ultra vires. But the fact remains that it should be necessary in a civilised community for a man to make himself a criminal in order to find out the law. Moreover, the procedure by means of a declaratory judgment which the law officers have refused to allow is simple, expeditious and conclusive as well as comparatively inexpensive; the method which those who question the regulations will now be driven to is cumbersome. dilatory and may in the end fail to draw a clear-cut decision, on account of legal technicalities. But even more deplorable than the refusal itself is the reason given for it. According to the Press reports, the request was refused because "The whole matter was one of Government policy, and therefore the SolicitorGeneral was not. prepared to facilitate the contemplated action." Surely this is a strange and dangerous doctrine. In the past, it has always been the proudest boast of our constitution, that not even Government policy could override the law. The imposition of ship momney in the days of Charles I was “a matter of Government policy," hut was Hampden denied his right to challenge it? Lord Hewart, Lord Chief Justice of England, recently wrote a hook deploring the tendency which he had observed in the Old Country for Government departments to try to arrogate undue power to themselves by issuing regulations. The title he chose for his book was “The Ngw Despotism.” Perhaps if a similar book were to be written in Ngw Zealand a suitable title would be "To Hell With the Law."—l am, etc., "LIBERTY."