Magistrate as Critic Of Transport Laws

Manawatu Times, Volume 66, Issue 209, 3 September 1941, Page 2

Magistrate as Critic Of Transport Laws

•‘FULL OF PITFALLS” Per Press Association. WELLINGTON, Sept. 2. The necessity of the Court to be watchful of any attempt to infringe the liberty of the subject and to guard against any attempt under cover of the regulations to impose upon any i section of the community burdens or interferences not expressly authorised or necessarily to be implied from the legislation itself, was stressed by the magistrate, Mr A. AI. Goulding, in a reserved judgment in which he hold 3 that one of the Transport Licensing Goods Service Regulations is ultra vires. The regulation generally requires it to be a condition of every licence that the licensee should be a member of an organisation of licensees under the Transport Licensing Act 1931. The Transport Department prosecuted the Woburn Carrying Co., Ltd., for an alleged breach of the regulation, and the company’s defence, raised by Mr E. W. R. Haldane on its -behalf that the regulation was ultra vires, is held by the magistrate to be a good one. The case was dismissed with costs to the defendant company. The magistrate drew attention to the fact that in certain respects some of the clauses in the order dated July 18, 1936 contained provisions materially different from the corresponding sections of the Transport Licensing Act. Whether such alterations or additions could be said to be modifications of the statutory provisions of the Act was a question of importance he felt he wa3 not called upon to determine.

“If they are,” he said, “then all I can say is that under Section 47 of the Act power would appear to be given by Order-in-Courcil to enact and create statutory law without reference to Parliament and without any apparent Limitation whatever.”

In criticising the way in which numerous alterations and additions had been made to this legislation, he said that the method followed presented great difficulty in tracing what had been done. “This method of legislation for control of goods services,” he said, “appears to be cumbersome and full of possible pitfalls, not only for operators but for those entrusted with the administration of the Transport Department and lastly for the courts, which have to interpret and apply the law.”

Nowhere in the Act could he find any statutory provision which appeared expressly to justify such a regulation as the one in auestion. He also drew attention to the fact that the Act nowhere provided that the regulations under it were to have statutory effect.

“Having regard to the objects and intentions of the legislature,” he said, “I cannot see that it is either necessary or expedient for the purposes of the Act that all licensees of goods services/ or, for that matter, passenger services, should be compelled to belong to such an association as is mentioned in the regulation.” In the absence of direct legislation making membership compulsory it should be voluntary.