BOWRON BROTHERS' CASE.

Colonist, Volume LII, Issue 12769, 15 April 1910, Page 4

BOWRON BROTHERS' CASE.

■ [United Pbess Absooia,tion.3 ' Wellington, April 14. In the appeal case, Bowron Broß. v* Bishop, S.M.j and Tyersj" the Solici-tor-General; for the defence, contended, that the information was "laid-when, -it was sworn before a justice. It was no part of the laying Of. an information to make application to a justice to issue a sumnions.' The laying was complete when the information _ .waa sworn .before a justice. -Even if that were not so in England —if was '-clearly, .the"-law in New Zealand,-for the law had been altered bysectidn- 54 of tha Justices of the Peace Act. An information could be laid before one justice, and aii application to issue a sumnions could be made to another. The jurisdiction of a justice was personal in New Zealand and he could, ii he liked, hold a court jn his o.ai dining room after dinner, as Engl sh justices could do biafore thp justices' courts were there established in 1879. The duty of a justice before whom an information was sworn was to. return it to the informant so that he might apply to another justice to issue a summons. Tie Act contemplated "delay between the swearing of a summons'; - and r an application for the issue of a summons. .■■•'"'.'.. Later. At the Court of Appeal tho argument in Bowron Bros. v. Bishop, S.M., and another'^ in answer to the contentions of counsel for th 6 plaintiilrs that the "information had not : been- laid within three years after the-alleged offence, the Solicitor-Gerieral contended first that the alleged: charge: was not the doing of an act, but the evading of taxation by "that act.- -The •doing of the act was not the completion of the offence,-and the.•ffenco . was complete only when the taxation was evaded, which might be many months, later; Tliat being so, even if plaintiffs' argument was right, the Magistrate had not erroneously decided any point of law collateral with the merits, and prohibition would not be at this stage. .'".-■