Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 23.pdf/45

 Canadian Appeals to the Privy Council

25

One may distinctly see,

Shows, to the meeting’s purposes, Direct hostility; E’en though, if carried, the debate It would abruptly end

By forcing him to leave the chair, And to an impasse tend. Let these few rules your conduct guide, And ever bear in mind (No doubt superﬂuous advice), Be courteous, ﬁrm but kind. Perth, Western Australia.

Canadian Appeals to the Privy Council IT

is not often that dissatisfaction with the present system of appeals to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council expresses itself in Canada. In fact,

such

dissatisfaction

can

hardly

be said to exist, in any general sense.

The Judicial Committee has always been careful not to interfere in matters

declaring that the Privy Council should not interfere "with judgments of courts of last resort in the colonies in cases of minor importance, such as Gordon v.

Home,” charges

that in

this case,

not yet reported, the Judicial Com mittee “reversed the decision of the trial judge upon a pure question of fact,

where its meddling might give offense

which decision had been affirmed by a

to Canadians, and not only in Canada but in other parts of the British Empire,

majority

its position as the ﬁnal arbiter of the gamer questions of a constitutional nature rests rather upon the voluntary demand for an imperial tribunal of last resort than upon any forcible

assertion of its prerogatives. The conse quence is that if it attempted to meddle

of

the

Supreme

Court

of

Canada (42 S. C. R. 240)." There is, in fact, something in the very cocksureness of this criticism which shakes one's credulity. What is charged is nothing less than a deviation from the policy which the Privy Council has steadily pursued, and it is difficult to believe that the decision in question

in matters of purely local concern it

was as plain a case of "reversal upon a

would soon find itself divested of the

pure issue of fact” as represented. Indeed, Mr. Deacon has been an

jurisdiction which it now exercises. One Canadian writer, however, now comes forward to object vigorously to the action of the Judicial Committee

in disposing of an appeal from the Supreme Court of Canada. In a com munication published in two Canadian

swered in an intelligent, fair editorial

in the Canada Law journal which probably disposes ﬁnally of this con troversy. This reply brings out one very important circumstance, namely, that the Privy Council held an opinion

Deacon,

of the facts similar to that of the Supreme Court of British Columbia,

‘BOL'anadian Law Tim: 875 (Nov). 46 Canada ml” a; 590 (Nov. 15).

though it reversed the Supreme Court

Law journals,1

Mr.

W.

S.