ARBITRATION COURT FINES.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2109, 18 June 1907, Page 4

ARBITRATION COURT FINES.

IMPRISONMENT FOR NONPAYMENT.

AN EXHAUSTIVE DECISION

Press Association. DUNEDIN, yesterday. In a case arising out of the slaughtermen’s strike at Timaru, Judge Williams refused a writ of attachment whereby it was sought to send the defendant, H. Millar, to prison, for failure to pay a fine of £5 imposed by the Arbitration Court at Timaru for taking pari jn a strike. DUNEDIN, last night. Mr. Justice Williams, in the courso of a judgment, said that subsection E of section 101 provided for' enforcement of payment. It enacts that for the purpose of enforcing payment of a fine and costs payable under any order of the Court a certificate in the prescribed form specifying the amount payable and the respective parties to whom the same is payable may be filed in any Court having civil jurisdiction and shall thereupon be enforceable as a final judgment. Tho certificate required has been filed ip the Supreme Court'. The question is whether the writ of attachment can issue against the respondent or that he can be committed to prison for making default in payment of the fine. If he can be so committed, it is only because by making default in payment he comes within the first exception in section 3 of the Imprisonment for Debt Abolition Act, 1874. Unless he comes within the excepted cases jn that, section no person can be imprisoned for nonpayment of a sum of money. Section 8 was adopted from section 4 of the English Debtors’ Act, 1869. The effect of section 4 of section'lol had been discussed in various cases. Subsection E does not pretend to "ive power to push for non-payment of a fine. I find nothing in it to suggest that the Legislature intended that in the event of default in payment of a fine inflicted by the Arbitration Court under section 101, the person in default should be punished by imprisonment. When the Legislature intended that default in payment of a fine inflicted by the Arbitration Court for an offence should be punished by imprisonment, it has expressed itself very clearly. Section 103 makes express provision for punishment by imprisonment in default of payment, but section 101 makes no such provision, it being enacted that payment should be enforced practically as in the case of civil debts. It would have been simple enough to have placed both clauses in some category, and the fact that the Legislature refrained from doing so is the strongeat possible reason for holding that it bad no intention that imprisonment should follow i n default of payment of a fine inflicted under section 101. The law must be clear, and not a matter of doubtful interpretation if tho liberty of the subject is to bo interfered with. In the former case Mr. Justice Cooper took a different view. He. however, was under a great disadvantage in having had only one side of the case presented to him. Mr. Justice Williams thereto re _ felt justified in differing his conclusion. If the present decision be wrong, the Court of Appeal could set it right very shortly. If on the other hand there was a hole in the Act requiring a patch. Parliament was at hand to patch it.