SEA FISHERIES ACT.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 16 August 1917, Page 3

SEA FISHERIES ACT.

CHARGES AGAINST LOCAL

FISHERMEN.

FINE OF £1 IMPOSED

APPEAL AGAINST MAGISTRATE'S

DECISION

At the Magistrate's Court, Helensville, on Friday last, a number of cases were brought under the- Sea Fisheries Act 1894, charging various fishermen of Helensville with a breach of the regulations issued under that Act. Mr Field appeared for the accused. Four of the cases were for carrying •guns on board their boats. Mr.Field asked that these cases should be taken separately, and accordingly the case against Julius Jorgenson was taken first. Mr Field, for the defendant, admitted all the facts, viz., that the defendant was the owner of a licensed fishing boat, and as such had carried a gun on the boat. But he raised the purely technical defence that the regulations under which the information was laid were invalid as being ' ultra vires.' He claimed that it was invalid in the first place because it attempted to make the exercise of the common law and statutary right to carry a gun in the shooting season become a punishable offence, and that such rights, he contended, could not be taken away without distinct statutary ] authority which was wanting in this case. In the second place, he claimed that it was invalid, because it attempted to impose as a term or condition of a license the abstention from an Act that the defendant had a perfect right to perform, and endeavoured to make the breach of that condition not only a cause of cancellation of th& license, but also a distinct criminal act. He contended that there was no statutary authority to enable the Governor-in-Council to exercise such an extraordinary power. He also claimed that the regulations were vague for indefiniteness The Magistrate, in giving judgment, upheld the regulations, and fined accused £1 and 7s costs. On Mr Field expressing his intention to appeal, the decisions in the other cases were reserved .till the appeal was heard. The case . against George Cox, for permitting an alleged dissolute person on board his boat, was dismissed. Mr Field appeared for defendant.