RESIDENT MAGISTRATE'S COURT, PORT CHALMERS.

Evening Star, Issue 3198, 21 May 1873, Page 2

RESIDENT MAGISTRATE'S COURT, PORT CHALMERS.

Tuesday, May 20.

(Before I. N. Watt, Esq., R.M., David O’Donoghue, Esq., J.P., and John Drysdale, Esq., J.P.)

Breaches of the Peace. —David Millar was charged with using language towards Joseph Morris, on the 7th hist., calculated to provoke a breach of the peace. This was a second information for the same offence, the previous one having been dismissed through the non-appearance of the complainant. Mr Howorth, who appeared for the defendant, contended that the Justices had no power to hear the case, inasmuch as it had been previously dismissed, and that ho had applied for a certificate of dismissal, to which he said he was entitled, though he had not received it., He made his application to the Clerk of the Court, through the

post, the day before.—Mr Hansford, for the complainant, argued that a certificate of dismissal, even if the defendant now obtained it, would be no to the present information ; r 4 tbc 23rd section of the Justices of the ’cacc Act, providing that a certificate of dismissal was only a bar to any proceedings under an information laid subsequent to the order and certificate of dismissal, and that in this case the second information was laid several days before the application for the certificate ; and, further, that the Justices had only power to grant a certificate when an information was heard and dismissed on its merits, which was not the case in this instance, as it was merely struck out in consequence of the non-appearance of the complainant. The Bench decided to grant an adjournment at the cost of the defendant, to give him an opportunity of applying to the same Justices who heard the former case for a certificate under the 23rd section of the Act.