SUPREME COURT.

Evening Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2224, 23 June 1870, Page 2

SUPREME COURT.

IN BANCO. This Day. (Before Mr Justice Chapman.) KEOINA T .JACKSON AND OTHERS. This was a motion to quash a conviction by the Port Chalmers bench. Some two months ago eight seamen of the ship William Lindsay were charged with wilfully disobeying orders, aud sentenced to eight weeks’ irnprisonnvbiit. It was now endeavored to upset the conviction on tbe grounds first, that the offence of wilful disobedience being single in its nature a joint conviction of several persons is bid, and, second, that it is not enough to follow the words of the statute enacting the offence, but that the particular acts relied upon should be set forth. Mr Bathgate moved tbe rule absolute, and Mr Haggitt showed 4 cause for the justices. As preliminary objections, Mr Haggitt contended, first, that the Justices of the Peace Act, under which the motion was made, did not do away with writ of certiorari, which he submitted was the proper proceeding. If it were so, the Imperial acts passed, to present prosecutors in cases of conviction being •harrassed and put to loss would, so far as New Zealand Was concerned, be repealed. Judge Johnston’s works on justices were cited } aud the Judge’s more recent qpiuiop as contained in the second edition of bis work, read, showing that his Honor had a doubt whether certiorari was done away with. Tho other objections were that the prosecutor was not made a party to the rule, and that it was not stated to have been granted on the reading of affidavits so that those filed could not now be used.

Mr Bathgate replied. His Honey said a wrjfc qf perfwrcm was only 8, rved’ on the justices, because the simple abject yyas to bn 11 ? the conviction into Court ; but he apprehended that in England there must be some mode of giving notice to the party interested in support of the conviction. At all events here, with the conviction in Cqupt, the prosecution ought t<> he served with the rule, and Mr Bathgate's affidavit, as an excuse for not serving it, would have been sufficient. However he would hear the case on its merits. Upon the first point, as to the necessity for cerfarari, ha thought the judges ought to make some resolution among themselves ; therefore he would not give judgment.

After argument, His Honor said he was with Mr Bathgate on the merits of the case on hcjth points. 11}6 offence being several should have boon treated as such on the conviction ; but he thought the graver objection was to the mode of setting them out. It was impossible on the face of the the Court to judge whether disobedience was the commands or not. He inclined to be against Mr the preliminary objections. This was not a judgment, but merely an opinion j he beif.g sirous of reserving the question of certiorari for the Court of Appeal.