COUNTY ELECTION DISPUTE

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 260, 1 August 1939, Page 11

COUNTY ELECTION DISPUTE

Fanner Excluded From Voting JUDGE HOLDS ACTION WAS PROPER By Telegraph-Press Association. DUNEDIN, July 31. “In my view plaintiff was properly placed on the defaulters’ list in the circumstances disclosed in this case, and was properly excluded from voting,” states Mr. Justice Blair in his reserved judgment in the case in which appeal was made against the decision of Mr. J. R. Bartholomew, S.M., in dismissing an action brought against the Peninsula County Council by Alexander Porterfield, farmer, Macandrew Bay. Porterfield owned properties in three ridings in the county. At the hearing before Mr. Bartholomew it was argued on his behalf that his name had been wrongfully placed on the defaulting ratepayers’ list, as he had failed to pay 11/- penalty charges on his rates in one of three ridings. He had consequently been deprived of the right to vote in all three ridings at the election of councillors and he had claimed £5O damages from the council. This action had been dismissed by the magistrate. His Honour, in a long judgment, dismissed the appeal with costs of £5/5/-. “The learned magistrate-based his dismissal of appellant’s case upon the ground that the county clerk, in placing appellant on the defaulters’ list, was acting in quasi-judicial capacity.’’ said his Honour. “There is something to be said for the soundness of this view, but I thought it advisable in this case to examine other aspects of the case first, and on the conclusion I have come to, it is not necessary for me to go into this further point.”