PERSONATION AT PROVINCIAL ELECTIONS.

Evening Star, Issue 3367, 4 December 1873, Page 2

PERSONATION AT PROVINCIAL ELECTIONS.

We give below the judgment of the Appeal Court in the case of Moore, who was convicted here of personation at the last Peninsula election in the Provincial Council. The question raised was whether the penal clause of the Regulation of Elections Act, which would undoubtedly apply to an election for members of the Assembly, applied equally to an election of members of the Provincial Council. The defect in the law wbjch the decision points to is undoubtedly a serious ppe, noting gau be <jope to remedy it until the next session of the Assembly : We are of opinion that the defendant ought not to have been convicted. We think that the language of the 70th section of the Act of IS7O does not necessarily import that section 50 is to be applied to cases of false answer, or personation at Provincial elections. The 70th sectjqn deals with the manner in which Prqyinf.iM elections art; to Ije condpetedj agd pru.vides that the]? he fvudvaTed ;n the manner prescribed by the Act fur the election of members of the House of Representatives, but subject to certain provisions thereinafter contained, which arc provisions for adapting the previous provisions to the case of Provincial elections. Now, we are of opinion that the 70th section of the Act may have full force and effect given to it without assuming that the 50th section is applicable. A Provincial election may surely “ be conducted in the manner prescribed, ” although acts done in the course of the election, which are made penal in the case of election fpr £hs House of Representatives hy previous sections, may not bo penal when committed at a Provincial election. The punishment of such acts, although they may be done in the course of the election, is not, we think, a part of the "conduct” of the election ; and although it would, no doubt, have been quite reasonable that the same things should be punishable, whether the election was for the General Assembly or for the Provincial Council, we do not consider (hat to be a good ground forgiving to the language a larger meaning than it necessarily conveys, in order to import a penal enactment. It is well worthy of notice that the Provincial Elections Act, 1858, section 5, after enacting that, subject to provisions hereinafter contained, the

election of superintendents and members of Provincial Councils should be _ conducted in manner prescribed by the Regulations of Elections Act, Is,oß, the section proceeds thus, ‘‘and all the provisions of the said Act shall apply to the elections of superintendents and members of Provincial Councils.” Mad such words occurred in the Act of 1870, there would hare been no doubt of the applicability of section 00 to Provincial elections; but, in the absence of some such words, we cannot say that the enacting force of them is to be implied from the words “shall be conducted in the manner prescribed.’’ Our opinion is fortified by the fact that a special enactment is contained in section 70 (which adapts the previously established mode of conducting elections in certain particulars to Provincial elections) to the effect that‘‘the provisions of this Act relating to parcels and packets deposited with the Clerk of the House of Representatives, and to the keeping thereof, and to the proof of the contents thereof, and to the effect thereof as evidence, and to the offences which may be committed in relation thereto, shall apply to the parcels and packets in this section mentioned,” the Registrar of the Supreme Court having custody of them being substituted for the ('lerk of the House of Representatives. If the.construction sought to be put by the prosecution on the 70th section were correct, there would probably have been no necessity for a special provision for the applicability of the Act “ as to the offences which may be committed ” in relation to the parcels and packets.