Page:The Annual Register 1899.djvu/627

 1899.] STATE PAPEES— TEANSVAAL. 203

By the Pre9s Law No. 26 of 1896, and the Amending Law No. 14 of 1898, which was reprobated by Transvaal newspapers of all shades of opinion, that freedom of the expression of opinion which the original Constitution of the Republic guaranteed, subject only to the responsi- bility of the printer and publisher for all documents containing defamation, insult, or attacks on any one's character (Grondwet 1858? Article 19), is seriously threatened. Under these laws the President is given the power, on the advice and with the consent of the Executive, of prohibiting entirely, or for a time, the circulation of printed matter which, in his opinion, is contrary to good morals, or a danger to peace and order in the Republic. This power has been exercised more than once.

Under the Aliens' Expulsion Law (No. 25 of 1896) an alien who is alleged to have excited to disobedience of the law, or otherwise to have acted in a manner dangerous to public peace and order, may be arbitrarily expelled from the country by an order of the President, while burghers who cannot be banished, may have a special place of residence assigned to them. From the point of view of the Outlander, the law draws an invidious distinction in favour of the burgher, who alone is given an appeal to the courts, and it is thus clearly incon- sistent with the spirit of the London Convention, while, as was pointed out in the correspondence on the subject printed in Blue-book C. — 8,423, its enforcement might lead to a breach of the letter of that instrument. Her Majesty's Government regret that the resolution of the Volksraad of July, 1897, in favour of amending the law so as to give every one an appeal to the courts (see p. 16 of Blue-book C. — 8,721), has merely resulted in the passing of Law No. 5 of 1898, which repeals the law of 1896, and re-enacts it without making any substantial alteration.

Up to 1897 the Outlander had full confidence that, at all events in cases where he was permitted to appeal to the High Court of the Republic, he would obtain justice ; but that confidence has been rudely shaken by Law No. 1 of that year, under which the President dismissed a Chief Justice universally respected. This law recites that since the foundation of the Republic the resolutions of the Volksraad have been recognised as law, and lays down that the courts have no power to refuse to apply any resolution because it is, in their opinion, invalid, and instructs the President to dismiss any judge who, in his opinion, returns an unsatisfactory answer to questions on the subject put to him by the President. It therefore follows that the fifteen gentlemen who compose a majority of the first Volksraad can at any moment amend the law of the land in the most important matters by a mere resolution, or even interfere in a case pending in the courts, as was, in fact, done in the Doms case when the Volksraad, by its resolutions of May 4, 1887, barred a claim brought in the courts against the State.

The law has practically had the effect of placing the highest court of justice in the country at the mercy of the Executive, and it is calculated to lessen the influence and authority of the court, and even to throw doubts on the impartial administration of justice in the Republic.

It results from this review of the facts and conditions on which the petition is founded, as well as from the information derived from your