WATERSIDE WORKERS

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 54, 26 November 1938, Page 12

WATERSIDE WORKERS

j Interpretations Of Recent Award COURT’S COMMENT ON NUMBER Special reference to the fact that the Court had been asked to decide 28 disputes of minor nature dealing with waterfront problems arising from an award that bad beCn issued only a year ago, is made in a memorandum to the judgment on those disputes just issued by the Court of Arbitration. “It is a matter for comment,” the memorandum states, “that the foregoing long list of interpretations has arisen in connexion with an award made as recently as November 30, 1937, the terms of which had been agreed upon in Conciliation Council. The Act enjoins the Court to set out in clear terms the provisions of an award, but the Court is naturally reluctant to alter terms on which the parties themselves have agreed in connexion .with matters on which they must be the most conversant. “Thus it would appear that an initial responsibility rests on the parties to make reasonably certain that the language they have employed expresses their mutual intentions. Greater appreciation of that responsibility would probably result in fewer applications to the Court to interpret provisions really framed by the parties themselves.” i