OUTSIDE AWARDS

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 160, 2 April 1931, Page 11

OUTSIDE AWARDS

Christchurch Tramways UNDER SPECIAL ACT Appeal Court Decision Giving its reserved decision yesterday on a question submitted to it as to whether the Christchurch Tramway Board had power to engage employees independently of the terms of the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act, and of any award under that Act, the Court of Appeal held that it was bound by a judgment given some years ago by Mr. Justice Williams, and that it was necessary to apply that judgment to the provisions of section 28 of the Christchurch Tramways District Act of 1920. The court held that the board had the power and the duty, under section 28 of its special Act, to appoint its staff untrammelled by the provisions of the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act. '

In its judgment tlTe court said:— “The only public-owned passenger tramway that is operated by a special board constituted under a special Act is the Christchurch City Tramway. Whatever may have bee nthe intention of the draftsman of this special Act or of the original Act whose place it now takes, it may well be that it was not contemplated by the legislature that the employees of the Christchurch tramway should be in any different position, so far as the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act is concerned, from the persons employed in the tramways operating in other cities and towns in New Zealand.

“The court is, however, not entitled to speculate as to what the intention of the legislature may have been. Its duty is confined to interpreting the actual language of the statute, leaving the legislature, if it thinks fit, to effect the remedy if it be found that the words of the existing Act involve a different result from that which may have been intended.”