MUNICIPAL BYE-LAWS.

Clutha Leader, Volume III, Issue 151, 1 June 1877, Page 5

MUNICIPAL BYE-LAWS.

The following important decision affecting the legality of the bye-laws of certain municipalities was given by Mr Carew, R.M., at Tuapeka, on Monday. The judgment explains itself: — "This is an information by the Town Clerk, of Lawrence, against Bernard O'Neil, charging him with having interfered with certain land under the control of the Borough Council of Lawrence, contrary to a bye-law of the said Council. The facts are admitted by the accused, but the question arises whether the bye-law under which these proceedings are taken has force to give me jurisdiction to inflict a penalty. It has been shown that the town of Lawrence was originally incorporated under the Otago Municipal Corporations Ordinance, 1865, and that subsequently certain parts of the Municipal Corporations Ordinance, 1867, were adopted and extended to the town of Lawrence, under which certain bye-laws were made, including that upon which the present information is laid. Tlie town of Lawrence, by proclamation under section 15 of the Municipal Corporations Act, 187(5, is now, as from the llth May (the present month), constituted a Borough under that Act, and it is provided by clause 4, section 16, of the Act, that ' all bye-laws or regulations in force within any such Borough at the time of its becoming a Borough under this Act ; shall continue in force until altered or repealed in the manner provided by this Act. ' It is then clear that if the bye-law was in force on the day Lawrence was constituted a Borough under the Act of 1876, it would continue to have operation. The bye-law, as already stated, was made under powers given by the Municipal Corporations Act, 1867, and it is provided by the Act that ' any such bye-law shall be of the same force and effect in and for such Borough, as if it had been expressly enacted for, and applied to the same by this Act. ' The Act of 1867 is repealed by the Act of 1876, which came into force on the lst January of the present year. In the esse of Boroughs under the Act of 1867, section 14 of the new Act constitutes them Boroughs under that Act, and the byelaws in force on the repeal of the Act of 1867 are continued in force ; but there is no saying clause that applies to those Corporations under the Otago Municipal Corporations Ordinance, that adopted parts of the Act of 1867, and made bye-laws under powers contained therein, and therefore those bye-laws became repealed along with the Act under which they were made. It has been admitted that there are no byelaws for the town of Lawrence made under powers given by the Otago Ordinances. If there had been any, the new Act would not repeal them, and they would have been continued in force when the town became a Borough under the new Act. For the reasons given, in my opinion, there are no bye-laws at present in force in the town of Lawrence, and the case must therefore be dismissed, as the accused cannot be convicted of the breach of a bye-law which has no existence."