ARBITRATION COURT FINES

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2166, 23 August 1907, Page 2

ARBITRATION COURT FINES

RIGHT TO IMPRISON FOR NON PAYMENT ESTABLISHED.

Press Association.

WELLINGTON, August 22. .. The Appeal Court gave judgment today in the case of Keddie v. Millar, involving the power of the Arbitration Court to enforce payment of its fines by imprisonment. Four of the Bench —tho Chief Justice, and Justices Cooper, Chapman and Bulton—decided that tho Arbitration Court had that power. Justices Williams and Denniston dissented, for the reasons given by Mr. Justice Williams when delivering judgment when the case was before him in Dunedin.

The Chief Justice in delivering judgment reviewed the Acts bearing on the subject and said that the Arbitration Court not having been given specific power to enforce its fines, it became necessary to refer to the Code of Civil Procedure to learn how judgment was to be enforced. In this he considered power was to be found, and concluded: —AA’liilst, therefore, I concur in the statement that before the (lower of attachment ought to he deemed appreciable, the Statute must be plain and clear, I am of opinion that the Statute, read in its ordinary meaning, intends to give and did give all power to enforce an order for payment of a fine that rule 386 of the Code of Civil Procedure gives, and that an order for payment of a fine did not become a judgment for money in an action for debt or damages so as to bring it within the exception mentioned in the rule. There have been many cases cited and many legal by-paths trodden in argument, but in my opinion the issue is as I have stated it, and little or no aid can be got in interpreting the Statute from a perusal of these clauses or from exploring these by-paths. I am of opinion that the appellant must succeed and, the judgment in the Court below be reversed with a direction to the Supreme Court to issue an attachment.”