THE MUNICIPAL DIFFICULTY.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5429, 21 August 1878, Page 2

THE MUNICIPAL DIFFICULTY.

TO THU EDITOR OF Thai .NE»V diSA&AND TIMES. Sitt,—Thu City Council appears to have been advUud that there i>t uo provision in the la v for the resignation of a City Councillor. Permit me to call the attention of your readers to the following provisions The Regulation of Local .Elections Act is a part of, and is to be read with, the Municipal Corporations Act; sec section 3of the latter Act. 2. Ey the former Act, section 2, and also by the latter Act, section 4, an “ extraordinary vacancy" is defined to be a vacancy', inter allay by “ resignation and the Municipal Corporations Act in addition defines a “ resignation," saying, it “ must be in writing, signed by the person resigning, and delivered to the Mayor or Town Clerk," 3. The 46fch section of the Regulation of Local Elections Act says : —“ln the case of any extraordinary vacancy”—that is, by the definition, in the case of a resignation—“ in an office." And then follows the mode of filling the vacancy. Hence the law provides foe a vacancy by resignation of any “office" to which the Acts relate. And the 2nd section agai'i enacts that an elective office “ means any office in, under, or in connection with any such local body requiring by law to be filled by the election of the citizens, burgesses, rate payers, or other constituency of any district.” And local body again is defined ; it “means the Council of any Municipal Corporation,” &c. Applying, therefore, the definitions to the 40th section of the Act, that is to say, replacing in the sec ion the words of the definitions, the clause reads thus :—“ In the case of any resignation by a member of the Council of any mmictpal Corporation," &c., the vacancy is to be filled as set forth. Now I shall be much obliged if any person, lawyer or layman, will be st> good as to tell mo what is the meaning of these words if a councillor may not resign. Courts of Law, it has been laid'down hundreds of times, are bound to give effect to th« language of Acts according to their obvious meaning and the intention of Parliament. Can any one in their senses argue that Parliament, in the above provisions, did not intend a city councillor to resign if he wished? I will so believe when I hear it laid down by the Supreme Court—not before. Mr. Travers states, “ A similar difficultv existed under the English Municipal Corporations Act until amended, &c." The difficulty was in no way similar. The section 47 of th« English Act simply enacts that “if any extraordinary vacancy shall be occasioned in tlv office of councillors," &c., hut does nob define “an extraordinary vacancy;" as such a vacancy may by death, it was held that it could not be interpreted to necessarily imply resignation. Hut in our Act the “extraordinary vacancy" is specially defined, and the omission in the English Act is thus supplied. It h straoge that it should not have been at once seen that the mistake in the English Act ha been recognised, and rectified in the Nev\ Zealand law.—l am, &c., James Edward Fitz Gerald. Clyde Cliff, August 19.