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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 68

Applications for Re-Hearing

Applications for Re-Hearing

Whilst I freely admit the justice of the principle embodied in the legislation of last session, which directs that these applications shall be determined in open Court, it must be admitted that they already occupy a very considerable portion of the time of the Chief Judge, and of the various Registrars. The right to appeal is being abused, and some means will have to be devised to act as a check on the same. We are between the Charybdis of the old system and the Scylla of the present one. Without some salutory check, the evil will grow beyond the power of a single Judge to remedy, besides adding heavily to the expenses of the department. Many of these applications are only sent in as pure speculations—"heads I page 6 win, tails I lose nothing." Some are sent solely from a desire that the senders may see their names in the Kahiti, and air their eloquence in Court; others out of "pure cussedness." To insist that each application should be accompanied by a deposit of £3, to be forfeited if the re-hearing be not persisted in or refused by the Court, would have more effect in checking speculative or bogus applications than would be expected from the smallness of the sum named. Power should also be given permitting the withdrawal of an application at any time before the date of hearing, such permission to be notified in the usual way Although it may, as a general rule, be desirable that those applications should be determined by the Chief Judge in person, it seems to me that circumstances may arise which would render it advisable to make provision for delegating the duty to other Judges, to prevent unnecessary delay in completing the titles. If the work is limited to the Chief Judge only, it could well happen that the title to blocks of laud might be hung up for a year or two, to the great inconvenience and serious loss of persons interested.

The defect in the law in not providing for the withdrawal of these applications, or for the abandonment of the re-hearing except in open Court, is causing serious loss by hanging up the titles to land.