APPEAL AGAINST CONVICTION

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27442, 31 August 1954, Page 7

APPEAL AGAINST CONVICTION

SAMOAN’S STAY IN N.Z. WITHOUT PERMIT argument in supreme COURT (New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, August 30. Mr Justice Hutchison in the Supreme Court at Wellington today, heard a general appeal by a Western Samoan, Stanley Annandale, a mechanic, against the decision, of a Magistrate convicting him of staying in New Zealand after the period of an extended temporary permit. His Honour reserved his decision. Evidence was given that the appellant wag granted a, temporary permit in March, 1951, to remain in New Zealand for six months as a visitor. Extensions were granted until September, 1953, when the appellant was told that his permit extension could no longer be supported. No renewal was granted, no reason for the decision was given. Percival Charles Keith Thompson, section officer of the immigration division of.the Labour and Employment Department, said he knew of no other case where §uch proceedings had been taken against any other New Zealand citizen. Mr S. C. Ennor, for the appellant, said it had been conceded that Annandale was a British subject and qualified for New Zealand, citizenship, having been born in Western Samoa in 1924, when the territory wa? subject to mandate. He submitted that the appellant not : subject to the provision? of the Immigration Restriction Act, 1920, as he was of British birth and parentage. . “I submit he has a right to remain m New Zealand which capnot be taken away by implication and can only be taken away by clear legislative provision, and that that right arises originally from his status as a British subject and New Zealand citizen,” he said. The Magistrate had applied a locality test, said Mr Ennor, who submitted that the proper test was a nationality test. Western Samoa was within His Majesty’s dominion and allegiance at the time the appellant was born. Any interpretation of the term “British birth” that excluded a natural-born British subject gave a result that the Legislature could hardly have intended, he said. Mr W. R. Birks, for the Crown, agreed that Annandale, because his father was a natural-born subject, was a New Zealand citizen, but he submitted that the appellant was not of British' birth or parentage. Birth, he said, referred to the place of birth, and at the birth of the appellant, Western Samoa was not British territory. No penalty was imposed in the Court, and the matter will be referred back there after the Supreme Court decision.