CORPORATION BY-LAWS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5369, 12 June 1878, Page 2

CORPORATION BY-LAWS.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE HEW ZEALAND TIMES. Sir, —Can you inform your readers why, in the recent case of the City Council against Ritson, the simple method of proving a by-law laid down by the Corporation’s Act, 1876, was not adopted? The 342nd section of the Act is as follows; —“A copy of any by-law, sealed with the common seal of the Corporation, shall be received as evidence of the same having been duly made as by this Act provided, unless the contrary is proved.” The 4th sub-section of the 16th section of the same Act provides : —“All by-laws or regulations in force within any such borough at the time of its becoming a borough under this Act, shall continue in force until altered or repealed in the manner provided by this Act.”

Common sense would lead to the conclusion that an old by-law having been made a by-law under the Act by the latter clause, and sealed with the Corporation seal by virtue of the former, must be accepted by any Court, unless the contrary is proved; and I shall continue to think so until some decision of a Court compels me to read very plain words iu other than their ordinary sense. But even although the special and very convenient method of proving a by-law were set aside, for some unknown reason, at the recent trial, I am wholly at a loss to understand the arguments relied on in the Supreme Court trial, upon which the decision of the Judges was based. The offence of non-removal of a house on the street was committed either under the old Act or under the new. If under the old Act, the question was, what was the by-law in force before the new Act was passed 1 and in order to prove that, the Act of 1872, which supplied the mode of proof, could be cited iu Court. Whether that Act was then in force, notwithstanding its repeal in 1876, has nothing whatever to do with the question. The Court decided that the second section of the Act of 1876 could not be extended to retain the Act of 1872 in force for the purpose of proving a by-law. I cannot imagine any one arguing, for a moment, that the second section could be so exteuded. But the Act of 1872 was not wanted to prove a by-law ; it was wanted to prove what had been a by-law before the passing of the repealing Act ; and no lawyer, I presume, will say that a repealed Act may not be relied on to establish what was the law before its repeal. This the Court was, unfortunately, not asked to decide. The validity of the by-law on the 30th October, 1876, being established iu the manner provided by the Act of 1872, that by-law became a by-law on 31st October by virtue of the new Act, and required no further proof. But if the information was laid for an offence after the Act of 1876 came into force, I have already shown that a sealed copy of the by-law would have satisfied all the proof the Court could have required. I call attention to these points because the ratepayers will have to pay, as I think, not for defects in the law, but for default in its application,—l am, &c., James Edward Fitz Gerald.