PRINCIPLE INVOLVED

Waikato Times, Volume 124, Issue 20733, 17 February 1939, Page 6

PRINCIPLE INVOLVED

An important principle is involved in the refusal to grant an originating summons to test the validity of the Government’s import control regulations, which has been the subject of a bitter indictment of the Government by Mr E. M. Algie, on behalf of the Freedom Association. Apart from the merits of the claim, it was not expected by most people that the Government would be willing to place its regulation on trial before the Supreme Court. The Government knew perfectly -well that it was departing drastically from established practice in New Zealand, and that it had issued the regulations on a subject which had not been placed before the electors.

Either the Government was not prepared to risk the defeat at law of a policy of its own instigation, or it was confident that even if the Supreme Court ruled against the regulation, the Government had the power to amend the law, and was thus saving time and money and simply pursuing a course which it intended to follow in any case. Attacking the regulation was practically futile in the first place, unless the Government could be forced to place the issue before the electors. The chief merit in the claim was the defence of the principle involved.

The principle remains unshaken. If any section of the public is denied access to the law to air any substantial grievance, that is an infringement of the liberty of the subject as liberty has hitherto been defined in democratic countries. No one denies that a long step has been taken towards the practice of rule by decrees, which is synonymous with dictatorship. Had the Government made the impending control of imports an issue at the election there would have been less complaint about its refusal to allow the courts to pronounce judgment on the regulations. The point is that the Government has the parliamentary majority to proceed with the programme which was endorsed at the polls, but it is on new premises when it attempts to enforce a regulation which has not had that approval and which could not reasonably have been anticipated by the electorate at the time of the general election.