MEMBER'S INTEREST

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 56, 7 March 1934, Page 8

MEMBER'S INTEREST

COUNCIL SCHEMES.

LAW INTERPRETED. AUDIT CASE FAILS. (Ky Telegraph.—Press Association.) BLENHEIM, this day. Information brought by the Audit Department against William Carr, plumber, a member of the Blenheim Borough Council, alleging that as a councillor he voted on a matter in which he had a pecuniary interest —a scheme for financing householders' connections to (lie sewerage was dismissed by Mr. T. E. Maunsell, S.M., in a considered judgment delivered in the Magistrate's Court to-day. The magistrate said the question turned upon the meaning of the words "pecuniary interest" in Section 57 of the Municipal Corporations Act, and the matter had not been raised previously for judicial interpretation. Mr. Maunsell held that the words related to a vested interest and did not extend to a mere prospective interest or contingent interest, lie commented that though defendant might in future secure work under the scheme, there was no evidence that that was certain, lie considered Carr was indiscreet in voting on the inciter as if affected him with bias, but the matter did not go beyond that.