TAIRAWHITI LAND BOARD.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3374, 14 November 1911, Page 5

TAIRAWHITI LAND BOARD.

APPOINTMENT OF JUDGE JONES. CRITICISED AT WELLINGTON. DUAL POSITIONS CONSIDERED BAD. {.SPECIAL TO TJ.MEB.]| WELLINGTON, Nov. 13. , The appointment of Judge Jones to be president_• of the Tair&whiti Maori Land Board while continuing to. be a judge of the Native Land. Court, is adversely criticised in the “Dominion' this morning. After referring to tire resignation of Mr Keefer, and the explanation offered by Sir James Carroll, the “Dominion” proceeds: “It follows from the Ministerial statement that- Mr Keefer’s successor has to perform- both judicial and administrative functions. That is to say when he presides at the Board he may have to act according to instructions from Wellington, and when he sits in the Court he must be perfectly independent. Of course, Mr Jones may be able to work in harmony with the Department all the morning, and forget it all in the afternoon. We do not question either his ability or his integrity, but we do say that such dual positions are an infraction of the principle of clear and complete separation between the executive and the jiidiciary. What Lord Justice Farewell said in the English Court of Appeal last December in the case of Hyson against the Attorney-General, is just as true in New Zealand : ‘lf Ministerial responsibility were more than the mere, shadow of a name the matt-pr would be. less important, but as things were the Courts were the only deference of the liberty of the subject against Departmental aggression,’ and "’‘what sort, of defence would the Courts be against Departmental aggression if it were customary for the judges to be also Departmental officers?’ That is what appears to be coming to pass in the Native Land administration of this country.

“One of the eight Judges of the Native Land Court is also District Land Registrar as Gisborne, another is President of the Waiariki Maori Land Board, and now we have a third appointment to a similar position. The other day it came out in the course of the Mokau disclosures that a Maori Land Board President can act with the full approval of the Government as trustee for a private company, whose dealings have to he reviewed by his Board. The presidency of a Maori Land Board is certainly a remarkable position.. It may be held, as in the case of Mr Walter Dinnie, by a person of no technical qualification or experience in the Native matters; its occupants may be on the one hand a judge or on the other a trustee for a speculative syndicate. Another evil aspect of the practice of giving administrative appointments to judges is that it opens up fresh possibiltiies of bestowing extra emoluments upon them under the present system. This matters less in the case of Native Land Court judges than in the case of the Supreme Court bench, because to the disgrace of the country, even the ordinary salaries of the former being placed year by year on the estimates, are subjected to the control of the Minister. It has always been difficult for a Native Land Court judge to feel quite independent, and Sir James Carroll has made it more difficult than ever, but no warning will impress him. The public conscience has rarely been more deeply moved than when it became aware of the secret case, hut that sorry chapter was hardly closed when the Native Minister sent the Chief Justice to the Cook Islands to hold an inquiry behind closed doors, and now, after weighty protests have been made against giving extra emoluments to judges, he quickly supplies with the acquiescence of the Cabinet, yet another instance of disregard for tile necessity of safeguarding the independence of the Bench. The incident is a fresh illustration .of the present Ministry’s habit of ignoring first principles of sound Government and constitutional liberty.”