COURT OF APPEAL.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 14280, 31 July 1908, Page 5

COURT OF APPEAL.

THE BLACKBALL CASE. ) JUDGMENT AGAINST THE UNION. (Pep. United Press Association.) WELLINGTON, July 30. Sir Robert Stout, Chief Justice, in delivering judgment in the Blackball case, stated that the. contention had been advanced that once the certificate order of the Arbitration Court, under section 10 of the net of 1905 lia<l been issued the court could make no fresh order, and that tho order could not be enforced a.s provided by subsections (f) and (g) of section 101. It. was also contended that subsections (f) and (g) applied only to a proceeding for enforcing a breach of mi award, and not to a. preceding for enforcing a tine under section ,15 of amendment act. of 1905. It was said that section 15 did not oxpreeely provide for the jurisdiction granted by (f) and (g), and did not incorporate those subsections. The words of section 15 were general. A union guilty of an offence under the section could bo proceeded against in tho same manner as if it were guilty of a breach of an award. If a. union, had been guilty of a breach of an award, and was unable out of its oorporate property to pay a tine, the members would be liable to proceedings to enforce .payment. of such fine by the members. It was not a. fmo on the members; they were liable to a fine upon the union because they were its members, just as shareholders in a company might, in certain circumstances bo liable for payment of the company's debts. His Honor Could not understand how it could be said that tho Arbitration Court had not jurisdiction to enforce payment of a fine under section 15, just in the samo manner as a fine for a broach of an awa.rd. What had been done by the court was within tho .very words of section 15, and tho Arbitration Court in making the order was acting within its jurisdiction. His Honor hold that, it was unnecessary to consider the effect of section 95 of the act of 1905, which took away the power from the Supreme Court of control over tho Arbitration Court, but in his Honor's opinion that section took away the power of tli© Supremo Court absolutely. His Honor was therefore of tho opinion that tho motion for certiorari should bo dismissed, and that the Blaokball Miners' Industrial Union of Workers must pay the costs of the proceedings. Justices Williams, Donniston, Cooper, and Chapman, in separate judgments, concurred in tho judgment of til© Chief Justice. Mr Justice Edwards, in a separate judgment, dissented from the view of the majority of the court, holding that tho Arbitration Court had exceeded its jurisdiction, and that section 96 of the act of 1905 did not take away the power of tho Supremo Court to control t Arbitration Court if it exceeded tho jurisdiction given to it by tho act of 1905. The motion was dismissed, with costs on the lowest scale and as from a distance against the Blackball Miners' Industrial Union of Workers.