1346 THE JUDICIARY [PART VI
15 Viet. No. 10, s. 5, there was a clause empowering the
Governor in Council to suspend judges. The judges maintained
 that the clause was not in force, and, when the
Attorney-General in consolidating the statutes regarding the
Supreme Court inserted it, the Chief Judges claimed that he
ought not to do so. When the Bill came before Parliament
the Legislative Assembly passed the clause, and the Council
amended it. The Assembly refused to accept the amendment,
 and when the Bill returned to the Council it was thrown
out. Finally, the four judges asked that the point should
be referred to the Judicial Committee. The petition was
forwarded to England at the end of September 1865. The
Judicial Committee was unwilling to pronounce an opinion on
abstract questions of law, but the Secretary of State for the
Colonies obtained an opinion from the Law Officers of the
Crown, then Sir Roundell Palmer and Sir R. P. (Collier,
which was in accordance with the views of the Law Officers
of Victoria, and not with that of the judges.
The opinion was to the effect that the Governor in Council
could still amove judges under Burke's Act, and they
thought that on the whole they could still suspend judges
under the local Act of 1852, the power of suspension for
the causes therein mentioned being not inconsistent with the
tenure of the office during good behaviour. The result was
that the judges consented to correspond with the minister.
But it must be admitted that doubt will be felt as to whether
the opinion of the Law Officers is really correct.
That Burke's Act should still be in force when another
statute gives a different power to the Governor seems at
least improbable, and that the local Act should have continued
 to be operative after the passing of the Constitution
Act would seem also to be a rather strained interpretation.?

! Contrast the opinion of the Law Officers in a Queensland case, that
a Governor cannot suspend a judge holding during gond behaviour even
when he could amove, cited in Todd, op. cit., ii. 896 ; Quick and Garran,
op. eit., p. 733. In Victoria the power of suspension was, however, continued
 in the consolidation of the statutes, and is now found in the Supreme
Court Act, 1890, ss. 13 and 14. It has never been used : eof. Jenks. Govern-