ELECTION EXPENSES

Dominion, Volume 19, Issue 257, 14 July 1926, Page 8

ELECTION EXPENSES

DECISION IN MARSDEN CASE NO BREACH OF LAW BT Telegraph.—Press Association. Auckland, July 13. Reserved decision has been given in the motion by Samuel Moinness and Angus J. McKay to compel the Marsden returning officer, Frank Bird, to take proceedings against William Jones, M.P. for Marsden, for alleged failure to submit a complete return of his election expenses. Mr. Justice Stringer said that on the facts stated it appeared that a true account of Jones’s expenses in the form required by the Act was not transmitted to the returning officer within seventy davs of the election. The accidental omission of £4 for launch hire, in his opinion, would not render the account of March 8 false within the meaning of the section. If the candidate had as a result of amendments substantially complied with the Act, as -in the present case, when both the returning officer and the chief electoral officer were satisfied with the return, His Honour did not think that a writ of mandamus should be granted to enforce penalties for merely technical breaches of the section. He was certainly not prepared, having discretion in the matter, to order the returning officer to lav an information for breach of the law against a person whom he honestlv believed had not committeed any such breach. In the exercise of his judicial discretion, he declined to issue the mandamus asked The motion was dismissed with costs.