WRIT OF PROHIBITION

Evening Star, Issue 22720, 6 August 1937, Page 8

WRIT OF PROHIBITION

MINI KG COMPANY'S APPLICATION UNUSUAL SUPREME COURT CASE A case of considerable interest and importance to mining companies was heard in the Supreme Court this morning by Mr Justice Kennedy, the Austral Malay Tin Company Ltd. proceeding against the Vincent County Council, and Henry James Dixon, S.M., warden of the Assessment Court for Vincent, seeking a writ of prohibition restraining the warden from hearing the plaintiff company's objection to the assessment of its property until assessors were appointed. The plaintiff company objected to the alleged excessive assessment of a holding of 325 acres. The plaintiff company was represented by Mr J. C. Parcell, of Cromwell, and the defendant parties by Mr A. N. Haggitt. The Austral Malay Tin Ltd. held certain areas of land in the Clutha River, near Cromwell, said Mr Parcell. Amongst those areas was a special dredging claim of 325 acres. This, was only a minor part of the company’s holding, as the most valuable land was the freehold further down the river. The company had received from the Vincent County Council a rates assessment notice assessing the holding of the 326 acres. On the grounds that it was excessive objection was lodged. Counsel quoted authorities under the Rating Act, 1925, under which the assessors were appointed. Mining properties of the nature of the plaintiff company’s one were liable to be rated by the local authority in ’the South Island, said Mr Parcell, and consequently this special claim became liable to be assessed for rates by the Vincent County Council. Objection was taken to the terms of the assessment, and on February 9 last a letter was sent to the council requesting that steps be taken to have assessors appointed. The county refused to move in the matter,’ and on March 17, Mr H. J. Dixon, S.M., the warden of the Otago mining district, who presided over the court in the Vincent County, was communicated with by the plaintiff company, setting out the position and asking whether under the circumstances^he intended to proceed to hear the objection without assessors. The present proceedings were later taken by which a writ of prohibition was sought, with the general object of restraining the hearing of the objection to the assessment until such time as assessors were appointed. The warden, said Mr Parcell, had not filed a defence, but the county had. Counsel then proceeded to cite authorities dealing w r ith the powers and legal jurisdictions of assessment courts.

Mr Haggitt submitted at the outset that the writ of prohibition was applicable neither against the warden nor the local authority, in this case the council. Mr Parcell had referred at length to the machinery of the provision dealing with the setting up and powers of an assessment court, but counsel held that this machinery could not function because certain parts were missing. The section in the Rating Act stated that the warden of the district in which the property was situated was vested with the power to assess that property. He had the jurisdiction to sit, and could not be restrained from sitting. Regarding the question of the local authority acting within its jurisdiction, the cost of adding members to the court would fall on the ratepayers. That was not acting judicially. Counsel mentioned that the Lake County had been revalued in recent times, but the Vincent County had not been valued for 20 years. Consequently, there had been no need, or the occasion, to set up an assessment court. It was a question whether it was in the interests of the ratepayers as a whole to set up assessors. No doubt the Lake County could ask the Governor-General to appoint them.

His Honour reserved his decision,