The Pending Appeal

Mr. O. F. Nelson

Letter to the Editor, WHEN the Supreme Court of New Zea land delivered judgment last June on my appeal against convictions entered against me for political offences by Judge Luxford at the High Court of Western Samoa in March, 1934, and the four Supreme Court Judges were evenly divided for and against the main convic tions, my counsel asked in open court for leave to appeal to the Judicial Commit tee of the Privy Council.

After some discussion of the matter, the Judges ruled that they did not think they had power to grant leave to appeal, but it was suggested that leave may be grant ed by the Judicial Committee direct, so it was no secret that leave to appeal was being applied for. Latest advices from London state that an early fixture is expected for the hearing of that petition.

It will be remembered that Mr. Justice Blair, one of the four Judges who sat on the Supreme Court hearing in Wellington, gave a very strong dissenting judgment, in which he ruled that the whole of the convictions should be quashed, and the

Chief Justice, Sir Michael Myers, sup ported him in regard to what he termed the main conviction. It was therefore surprising to read Mr. Marc Greene’s let ter in your December issue, in which he stated, inter alia ; “ . . . There is not a chance in a hun dred of the Privy Council reversing it, even if it is taken to that body.” And “I am the last person to maintain that the system is a success or should be con tinued, but it is certain that no High Court would take the responsibility of action that would amount to a settings aside of the authority of the Mandatory.”

In view of the facts mentioned above, there is no question but that the case is sub judice, and had it been an Australian, instead of a New Zealand case, the ques tion of privilege to publish such com ments at this stage might have arisen.

To say the least of Mr. Greene’s remarks, they show no respect for the high integ rity and discretion of the highest judicial tribunal in the British Empire, with juris diction over appeals from outside of the United Kingdom. Perhaps this cannot be expected from an American journalist like Mr. Marc Greene, but that a British journal of the high standing of the P.I.M. should publish such a letter, at this junc ture, must be amazing to many who hold the last court of appeal in Dominions and Colonial matters in that high respect to which it should be entitled.

I am, etc.,

O. F. Nelson.

Auckland, 11 February, 1935.