[?] Provision For

[?]OK

[?]Ands Appeals

SOPLE living in the Cook Islands apparently have no right of appeal against Court tences imposed in the Cook nds. [r. Justice Finlay, in a written gment quoted in the New land Herald, Auckland, on May says: rhere seems to be no right of eal against a sentence, as ti, imposed in the Cook Islands; t is a position to which the mtion of the Legislature might I be drawn.” ndge Finlay gives his reasons quashing, last December, the viction of two 20-years-old iters, Pare Rau Tini, and ama Nicholls. ini had been sentenced by the ik High Court to five years’ hard )ur on a charge of rape; Nicholls one year’s gaol for alleged ecent assault of the same girl, he judgment states: “It is :cult to imagine a case where yarning against the acceptance uncorroborated testimony was 'e needed than in this case, nor in which the evidence gestive of consent should have n pointed out to the jury with ihasis. [n any event, a conviction can rcely be said to be satisfactorily nded on the evidence of a girl ) did not call for help; who, in ,e of injuries, did not complain il specifically challenged, and d then untruly alleged criminous 3 against two men, one at least whom was not guilty of any ninal action if the girl’s own sequent sworn testimony is epted.”

'he judgment states that the y conclusion that could be ched about the finding of the was that it was, in the :umstances, unsatisfactory.

The disquiet engendered by its ;atisfactory character is :mented by the fact that the le assessors in the same trial victed a man (Nicholls) of an ;nce of which the evidence ved him not guilty,” the judgment tinues, adding the “inappropriate I unnecessary” idea of “accom :e’s evidence” may well have re ;ed in confusion in the assessors’ ids. udge Finlay points out that no fence of such length as that five years on Tini would be Dosed in New Zealand in such mmstances. If it were, it would ; be sustained on appeal. ’’astor Salerua returned to igoa Presbyterian Mission tion, New Hebrides, in May.