Traffic Informations Held Illegal

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31089, 18 June 1966, Page 1

Traffic Informations Held Illegal

The standard New Zealand practice of framing information on traffic charges is illegal in the lack of sufficient detail to inform a person of what is alleged against him, Mr Justice Wilson has ruled in the Supreme Court in Christchurch.

“The most elementary principles of justice require that every charge should sufficiently inform a person of what is alleged against him before he is called upon to plead to it,” his Honour said.

The present practice, said his Honour, encouraged prosecutors, in summary proceedings, to make “shotgun” charges in general terms, in the hope that from the evidence adduced one or more pellets would reach the mark. - His Honour’s ruling was given in a reserved decision on a case stated as to whether two informations against Desmond Francis Wyatt, a Christchurch truck driver, should have, contained particulars of the manner in which it was alleged he drove dangerously, and the manner in which it was alleged he drove carelessly.

Wyatt’s case was argued by Mr A. D. Holland before his Honour last week. “CARELESSLY USING”

The first charge against Wyatt was that on a specified day at a specified pl|ce he

caused bodily injury to a named person “by carelessly using a motor-vehicle, namely a motor-truck.”

“I must confess,” said his Honour, “that I can gain no idea from these words as to what the defendant did that was careless use of a vehicle.”

The expression “using a motor-vehicle” was, in itself, vague, his Honour said. It gave no indication whether the defendant was driving it, or using it in some other manner.

And the word “carelessly" could hardly be less informative. “Carelessness, like charity, covers a multitude of sins,” his Honour said. SECOND CHARGE

The second information, charging Wyatt that on a specified date he drove a truck in Moorhouse avenue “in a manner which having regard to all the circumstances might have been dangerous to the public,” signally failed to conjure up any mental picture of the defendant’s alleged manner of driving, or the circumstances in which it might have been dangerous. Neither information, his Honour held, complied with section 17 of the Summary

Proceedings Act, 1957, which says:

“Every information shall contain such particulars as will fairly inform the defendant of the substance of the offence with which he is charged.”

In his decision, said his Honour, he differed from the views of Mr Justice Hardie Boys in Ford v. the Police (1961), in which ruling he said, there was failure to give adequate weight to the word “fairly.” “It seems to me that this word indicates that the words used in an information must be tested according to what is fair to the defendant, as well as to the informant," said his Honour. It was not fair to the defendant to leave him to guess what acts dr omissions on his part were comprehended in such vague terms as “carelessly using” a motor-vehicle or “driving in a manner which . . . might have been dangerous to the public.”

Rubbish Fire.— A. rubbish fire in a City Council rubbish truck in Tuam street at 9 a.m. yesterday caused slight damage to the truck. Headquarters station firemen attended.