CHRISTIAN PACIFISTS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24631, 12 June 1941, Page 2

CHRISTIAN PACIFISTS

SUPREME COURT CONVICTIONS APPEAL ARGUMENT CONCLUDED (P.A.) WELLINGTON, June 11. The hearing of the case Rex v. Burton and others was continued in the Court of Appeal to-day. Counsel for the prisoners submitted that convictions in the Magistrate’s Court under the Police Offences Act prevented convictions in the Supreme Court under the public safety emergency regulations, ’as the evidence called to establish the latter charges was substantially the same as that called in the prosecution in the Magistrate’s Court. He submitted that it was a fundamental principle of English law that a person should not be called upon to answer a second time for the same or substantially the same conduct. Counsel for the Crown contended that counsel for the prisoners had misinterpreted the principle. The true test to be applied was not whether the conduct relied,.on. by_ the prosecution was the same in both cases, but whether on examination of the ingredients of the charges they were found to be the'same or substantially the same. The charges under emergency regulations had different ingredients from the charges under the Police Offences Act. and the prisoners, therefore, were rightly convicted in the Supreme Court. The -court - reserved its- decision;