In this 150th anniversary of the creation of sa国际传媒, we are looking back at editorials published in our predecessor newspaper in 1867.
This week, the editors wrote about a lack of staff in the court system, which allows, then as now, accused people to go free. In this instance, attorney general Henry Pering Pellow Crease had remained in New Westminster when the editors believed he was needed here.
Other players in this drama were chief justice Joseph Needham and Edward Graham Alston, the colony鈥檚 registrar general; and as an emergency replacement, lawyer T.L. Wood.
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Few things are more destructive of the best interests of society than a failure in the administration of justice; and no circumstance exerts a more unwelcome moral effect upon the masses than a knowledge of the fact that through the dilatoriness or cowardice of a public officer, criminals are permitted to escape a well-earned punishment.
We are led to this reflection by the state of affairs that has obtained at the late term of the Assize Court. By law, the attorney general is required to attend and represent the Crown; or, should he be unavoidably absent, he must depute a proper person to act for him.
When the court opened on Monday, Mr. Crease was non est. He remained at New Westminster, and authorized a gentleman to act for him who (if Mr. Crease knows anything of the laws of the colony in which he holds office) he ought to know is debarred by those laws from practising at the bar.
The consequence was a failure of justice in at least three cases. Two murderers and a swindler are turned loose upon the community to renew their crimes as occasion may offer. In these cases, no subpoenas had been served, no depositions copied, no writs issued.
The machinery of the court was clogged, and but for the timely assistance of an experienced legal gentleman, who chanced to be disengaged, there would have been an utter and complete stoppage of the whole business, and all the prosecutions must have fallen to the ground.
The court is not in session at New Westminster, and we ask why Mr. Crease was not present to discharge the duties of his office. The convenient excuse of 鈥渃ouncil meeting鈥� will be put forth, of course; but that excuse is worn threadbare and cannot be accepted as valid.
We really believe that Mr. Crease, not being sure of his own status before Mr. Needham, sent Mr. Alston ahead to feel the way for him to 鈥減rospect鈥� the ground.
If all had gone well with Mr. Alston, the attorney general would have appeared begowned and bewigged at the next assizes and entered upon the duties that pertain to the position. All, however, did not go well with Mr. Alston, who was placed in a false position by the attorney general; and now nothing remains for Mr. Crease than to come himself.
The attorney general ought to be above such shuffling as has been developed this week.
He must have known that Mr. Alston could not legally act; and if he did not know it, he ought to resign and 鈥減ost鈥� himself as to the meaning of the statutes before he again enters a court of justice.
The moral cowardice displayed by the attorney general in seeking to avoid an issue that he must sooner or later face is inexcusable under any circumstance; but since injury has resulted to the public interest, the delinquent official should be visited with the severest censure.
The Daily British Colonist and Victoria Chronicle,
Nov. 8, 1867
