EXTENSION OF MAGISTRATES' POWERS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXXXII, Issue 192, 27 August 1900, Page 2

EXTENSION OF MAGISTRATES' POWERS.

The Indictable Offences Summary Jurisdiction Amendment Bill, introduced by the Minister of Justice, amends the law relating to summary jurisdiction with respect to indictable offences. It empowers a magistrate to deal summarily with the following offences:—(l) Attempted suicide; (2) maiming or killing any horse, ass, bull, coiv, pig, sheep, or goat; (3) damaging property, where the value is not less than £5 or more than ,£2O; (4) false pretences, where the value of the property the subject-matter of the offence exceeds £2 but not £2O ; and (5) theft, where the value of the property exceeds £5 but not £2O. In all such cases tho punishment is limited to twelve months' imprisonment or under or a fine not to exceed £4O, The above classes of offences, however, can only be dealt with summarily by consent of the person charged, and pro vided that the offence is not one which, owing to a previous conviction, is punishable with imprisonment for three years and upwards. Several other clauses of the Act of 1894 are imended. The clause stating that every prosecution for an indictable offence must be commenced within six months after the commission of the ifl'ence is to be altered to read twelve months. Offences against girls, provided against in the Act, are further dealt with by extending the age bolow which such offences are made criminal from >l6 yews, (