CASE DISMISSED.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 23, 28 January 1939, Page 12

CASE DISMISSED.

MAGISTRATE OUTSPOKEN.

"ROUNDABOUT" METHODS DEPLORED. (By Telegraph.—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, Friday. Remarking that such procedure wa« shocking, Mr. J. H. Lux ford, S.M., in the Wellington Magistrate's Court today, strongly condemned what he termed "roundabout prosecutions" when dismissing a in which three defendants were charged with taking jwrt in a procession without a permit. It was Mated that a fourth person vu concerned, but no summons had yet been served against him.

In the opinion of the magistrate the defendant* had really been brought before the Court because they displayed slogans which were stated to oppose the buying of Japanese good*, although in fact they had been charged with a I breach of a by-law.

"I have the greatest objection to roundabout prosecutions," said Mr. Luxford. "It is not because they were four people walking along the street^that these people are before the Court. It is ridiculous to suppose that four people walking like these people could have the slightest effect on the proper use of the street. They are being brought before the Court because they displayed slogan*, and they have had to do it by this by-law.

"If it is wrong for them to display | slogans, then they should have a law to say they cannot do it. I do not like prosecutions being brought under the guise of their having formed a procession, when the real purpose is to stop them from displaying slogans." The prosecuting sub-inspector defined a. procession as "an array of persons or vehicles arranged in succession and moving in a formal manner."