PERSONAL & CONFIDENTIAL
3.
General and having acted on two occasions as Solicitor General. I have no doubt that he would make a competent and efficient administrator.
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"Briggs, G.G. A quick worker with
He
a nimble, active brain, who is also capable of getting through a great deal of work. has the reputation and I think justifiably
of making up his mind at a prematurely early stage of the case particularly in civil matters and thereafter becomes some-
SO
what intolerant and impatient towards arguments put before him. In my view, he is better suited as a trial judge than in the Appellate Court. He has an attractive but somewhat volatile temperament. In my view, either Blair-Kerr or Mills-Owens have stronger and more suitable claims to act as Chief Justice.
"Mills-Owens, R.H. In my view,
the best lawyer on the Supreme Court Bench. He has a very wide legal knowledge and con- siderable practical experience. An extremely fair-minded person eminently suited to be a Judge of Appeal. He has already held the office of Chief Justice of Fiji from May 1964 to October 1967. Sir Michael Hogan took the view, with which I agree, that since his return from Fiji he appears to have lost some of the spirit and vigour with which he was previously endowed.
Although in my view Mills-Owens, J. in terms of pure professional capacity is a better judge and lawyer than Blair-Kerr, J. there is not much to choose between them, and having regard both to seniority and, I think, administrative capacity, in my view, Blair-Kerr is to be preferred to Mills-Owens.