Ffrost Case

Efforts to Keep Young Man Out of New Guinea Courts Creates First class Constitutional Tangle.

ONE of the prettiest constitutional tangles seen for years came before the Australian courts in April and May as a result of an attempt by the law offi cials in New Guinea to have Galfred Mervyn Collins Ffrost brought back from Sydney to New Guinea on a charge of causing the death of a native labourer.

Ffrost is a young man of good type and family and was employed as a plan tation overseer by Messrs. Burns, Philp and Co. Ltd. There was some difficulty with labour on the plantation and a labourer died. The boss boy was held in some way responsible for the death and was sentenced to gaol. Then the court reached out for Ffrost, who had gone on leave.

The “Big Firm” stood staunchly be hind its employee, and the lawyers in voked every possible process of law in order to prevent Ffrost from being sent to New Guinea. It is not possible to dis cuss the merits of the case, because it is sub judice ; but it is apparent that the “Big Firm” is not helping its employee to evade punishment for any offence he has committed but is rather seeking to protect him against trial by a New Guinea court which is regarded by the New Guinea public generally as irrespon sible and unfair. counsel sought a Habeas Cor pus order. It was refused. The power of the magistrate to send Ffrost back to New Guinea was challenged before the Supreme Court (a State institution). The matter went on from the Supreme Court to the Full Court of the Supreme Court.

The latter on April 23, in a judgment that is beyond the understanding of a mere layman decided that a State Court need not recognise the process of a New Guinea Court; yet somehow it was de cided that Ffrost could be sent back to New Guinea by the State magistrate.

The Sydney Morning Herald said, on April 27, that “the decision that the Commonwealth Parliament had no power to enact service-and-execution-of-process legislation as between the States and the Mandated Territory” had convulsed legal and constitutional circles, and it was sug gested that, the Imperial Parliament might have to amend the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act. Said the Herald : “The practical effect of the Supreme Court’s judgment is that the residents of the Territory are

left without means of enforcing their legal rights against residents of the States.

“The practice has been that, where a judgment has been given in a New Guinea Court against a resident of a State, a certificate has been ten dered before a prothonotary of a State Court, who registers it, the judgment then taking ; orce as if it were a judgment of the State Court. A number of such judgments have in fact been registered in New South Wales.

“In the decision of the Supreme Court on April 23, the regulations under which this was done, and the section of the Service and Execution of Process Act under which those regulations were made, were declared ultra vires and invalid.”

Meanwhile, the position was that Ffrost was again headed for New Guinea.

His counsel then made an appeal to the higher constitutional authority, the Com monwealth High Court and he was re leased on bail. For several days early in May, five eminent judges of the High Court heard an appeal by Ffrost against the decision of the Full Court of the Supreme Court, and constitutional issues of first-class importance were raised and argued. Finally, on May 14, judgment was reserved. The impression seemed to be general that the High Court was called upon to make one of the most diffi cult decisions in its history, involving the relationship between the Common wealth, the States, and the Territories.

Ffrost is still ’in Sydney on bail.

The costs in this case must have been enormous.

It is to be hoped that, as a result of this case, the Federal Government will take early steps to review and reform the judicial machinery that has been operating in New Guinea for some years past.