"CASE CANNOT BE REOPENED"

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22135, 3 July 1937, Page 8

"CASE CANNOT BE REOPENED"

DECISION GIVEN BY MAGISTRATE

ARBITRATION COURT'S RULING

Holding that a case decided by a Magistrate, against which no appeal had been made, could not be reopened, the Arbitration Ccurt decided in a judgment issued yesterday that it had no jurisdiction to deal wfth alleged breaches of the Plasterers' Apprenticeship Order, which were the subject of proceedings brought by Mr R. T. Bailey, District Registrar of Apprentices, against H. McCree and Son, plaster board manufacturers (Mr R. A. Young) in the Court last week. Mr Bailey had alleged that the defendant had employed two youths as apprentices, without obtaining permission of the Apprenticeship Committee. and claimed a penalty of £lO on each count. The judgment stated that tlie only difference between the cases and those heard in the Magistrate's Court was that the offences were alleged to have been committed on different dates. The District Registrar admitted that he m ! ght have appealed against the decision of the Magistrate, and at the hearing announced his intention of doing so. Apparently he had elected at a later date not to appeal for several reasons, of which one was that after the hearing he obtained additional evidence in support of his case. "It has long been settled by authority " the judgment continued, "that an action which has been determined by a Court of competent jurisdiction cannot be reopened. .Accordingly, this Court has no jurisdiction to deal again with these alleged breaches. The law has appointed one course of procedure only by which the decision of the Magistrate could have been reviewed, namely, by appeal. "Nor docs anything turn on the subsequent discovery of additional evidence in view of the fact that this Court has power not merely to take further evidence, either orally or by affidavit, but to rehear the whole case." ___^___^_