CLARIFICATION SOUGHT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27265, 16 December 1949, Page 8

CLARIFICATION SOUGHT

JURISDICTION OF AUTHORITY

TRANSPORT CHARGES APPEAL PA WELLINGTON, Dec. 15. Proceedings seeking a writ of injunction or mandamus against the Transport Appeal Authority, Judge Archer, and the Checker Delivery Service, Ltd., of Auckland, were opened in the Supreme Court today before Mr Justice Hay. The plainun.-, Federated Farmers of New Zealand, Incorporated, were represented bv Mr W. G. Smith, and the second defendants by Mr D. Perry. Mr A. E. Currie, of the Crown Law Office, also attended by direction of the court. The claim was laid in view of doubts entertained regarding the jurisdiction of the Transport Charges Appeal Authority, said Mr Smith in opening, and it desired, to have the position clarified. The facts of the claim stated were agreed upon, and argument would centre round the inferences to be drawn from those facts, said Mr Smith. , . , . The Transport Act, 1949, which incorporated the earlier Transport Law Amendment Act, interfered with the common law right to make contracts, and therefore should be interpreted strictly, continued counsel. In effect, he added, the plaintiffs were seeking a strict interpretation of the Act. The motion for the writ alleges that the authority’s decision to hear an appeal from the Checker Company against decisions by the Transport Charges Committee last August was outside his jurisdiction, and prays that the authority be either prohibited or restrained from hearing the appeal or else directed to hear it only so far as the schedules decided upon by the Transport Charges Committee affect the actual interests of the company. Mr Justice Hay reserved his decision and said an endeavour would be made to give it before ti. - court vacation.