Lawyer Mr. Julian Hall this morning begins a last-ditch fight to prevent Police using documents seized from his office for a drug trafficking investigation.

Mr. Hall will try to secure Court of Appeal approval to have his case heard before the Privy Council.

The hearing follows the Court's judgment this summer overturning a ruling by the Chief Justice which quashed two search warrants used to raid Mr. Hall's law offices.

The search warrants were granted in October, 1993 by a Magistrate who said he was satisfied there were reasonable grounds for suspecting Mr. Hall had benefited from and "assisted others to retain the benefits from drug trafficking...'' The two Police raids of Mr. Hall's Chambers, Hall & Associates, led to the seizure of client files, computer discs, address and telephone directories and appointment diaries.

Chief Justice the Hon. Mr. Justice Ward later quashed the search warrants saying the Magistrate failed to consider whether the documents to be seized were subject to lawyer-client privilege.

But the Court of Appeal rejected that conclusion saying the Chief Justice had applied the "wrong test'' to reach it.

Yesterday, The Royal Gazette obtained a copy of the Court of Appeal's reasons for overturning the Chief Justice's decisions on the search warrants.

The Hon. Mr. Justice Huggins said the Magistrate had followed the requirements of the Drug Trafficking Suppression Act in authorising the search warrants.

He ruled the Act did not expressly require the Magistrate to consider the issue of privilege.

As long as the Police satisfied the grounds for reasonable suspicion, the magistrate is "entitled to issue a warrant''.

Mr. Justice Huggins said it wasn't for the court to require a Magistrate to rule on privilege when the legislature, in making the law, must have deliberately omitted it.

The statement shot down an assertion by the Chief Justice, who said the Magistrate surrendered his judicial independence to Police in saying he did not have to rule on privilege.

Mr. Justice Huggins said the legislature must have omitted the question of privilege from the Act because it would be impossible for a Magistrate to decide such matters in advance.

Mr. Justice Huggins concluded the magistrate had sufficient evidence on Mr.

Hall to justify issuing the search warrants.

That justification, he noted, was supported by the Magistrate's efforts to satisfy himself the Police had reasonable grounds to suspect Mr. Hall.

The court said the Magistrate had applied a "higher burden of proof'' than the law required in issuing the two search warrants by satisfying himself there were reasonable grounds to "believe'', rather than to "suspect'' wrongdoing.

Mr. Justice Huggins also found fault with the Chief Justice's statement that the Magistrate's affidavit explaining his actions was unsatisfactory because it was "couched in the language of statute merely''.

"I do not think that the Magistrate can be faulted for following closely the language of statute,'' he said. "It is often a wise thing to do and in no way indicates that the wrong standard of proof has been applied.'' Mr. Justice Huggins concluded there was "no sufficient reason to quash either of the two warrants...''