PROTEST EXPRESSED

Timaru Herald, Volume CLVI, Issue 22992, 8 September 1944, Page 4

PROTEST EXPRESSED

Retrospective Legislation (N.Z.P.A.) CHRISTCHURCH, Sept. 7. ’ “This Chamber records its -emphatic protest against the principle of retroactive legislation as instanced m the recent Finance Act, Section 14. The policy of making legislation, and especially taxation legislation, retrospective is hostile to the spirit of English law and is opposed to the cardinal principles of Parliamentary law-making. The law and its operation should be certain, and a citizen who is obliged to know the law as at present speaking should not also be obliged, to anticipate future changes in law rendering illegal transactions already legally entered into by him.” ’ . , , .. This resolution was carried by the Canterbury Chamber of Commerce this evening on the recommendation of its Parliamentary Bills Committee. The chairman of the committee, Mr L. J. Hensley, read numerous quotations from judgments of English courts, including one which described as “mischievous and contrary to the spirit of English law.” the then practice (in 1845) of Parliament making legislation retrospecive to the first day of the session in which the law was passed.