WORDING OF A CHARGE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16372, 28 October 1916, Page 9

WORDING OF A CHARGE.

DESTROYIW POSTAL MATTER. An* instance showing how the particular wording of a charge may affect its legality was provided in the course of a brief legal argument at the Supreme Court yesterday. An ex-postal official was due to appear for sentence on a charge of destroying postal packet*, but as he had been released on bail, and no notice had been served on him, the case could not be gone on with, and was adjourned until Friday next. His Honor Mr. Justice Hosking directed the attention of the Crown Prosecutor, the Hon. J. A. Tole, K.C., to the wording of the charge, and suggested that the word " unlawfully" should be included. Section 92 of the Post Office Act made it penal for any postal official to sell, secrete or destroy a postal packet under any circumstances whatever, but for certain other sections of the Act. power and authority was given to postmasters to destroy postal packages if the latter contained blasphemous, immoral, or indecent papers or publications. The word " unlawfully" would reconcile the charge in the present case to the spirit of the Act. If the word was not included, according to the reading of section 92 of the Act, an officer who destroyed a package containing matter that was prohibited to be passed through the post would be technically guilty of an olfence. Mr. Tote argued that postal packets could only be destroyed by the authority of a postmaster or the PostmasterGeneral. His Honor replied, saying that this would give any village schoolmaster or grocer, who acted as postmaster for the district, power to destroy a package which passed through his hands. The Act differentiated between lawful destruction and unlawful destruction. Mr. Tole contended that if the wording of the section of the Act relating to the destruction of a package applied, or was intended to apply, specifically to a postmaster there was no necessity for the word "unlawfully" to figure in any charge or information against a postal official holding an inferior rank. He admitted that it might be worth while to include the word " unlawfully" in the charge, as had been suggested by His Honor.