TAKING RUGBY TO LAW

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 105, 25 July 1927, Page 1

TAKING RUGBY TO LAW

Hawke's Bay Will Not Surrender Ranfurly Shield Without Legal Fight

SUPREME COURT ACTION!

(.Special to THE SUN .)

WELLINGTON, To-day. The Hawke's Bay Union intends taking the Ranfurly Shield dispute to the Supreme Court.

When Mr. S. Dean, chairman of the f Management Committee of the New Zealand Rugby Union, had drafted his motion dispossessing Hawke’s Bay of the Ranfurly Shield on Saturday, the Hawke’s Bay delegate, Mr. Norman McKenzie, asked what was .the penalty for this under the rules of the New Zealand Rugby Union. Mr. Dean replied: The Management Committee has power to deal with any matters in any way they think fit. Mr. McKenzie: The union is disobeying the rules of the New Zealand Union and may be suspended from membership or may be expelled. Mr. Dean: What bearing has this on the matter? Mr. McKenzie: We are disobeying a rule of the New Zealand Union. Mr. H. Leith: You are not disobeying it. * You broke it. Mr. McKenzie: What’s the difference? Mr. E. Wylie: You erred in ignorance. Mr. McKenzie: We disobeyed. (Laughter.) Mr. Leith: You have broken it in ignorance, and you must pay the penalty for it. Mr. McKenzie: We won’t be the only ones to pay for it. This will open a wide field. Mr. E. Hornig: It amounts to this. These unions don’t know the New Zealand Union's rules, and their own are different. Mr. T. A. Fletcher: I think that they are like most of us here. Mr. McKenaie: Our rules were passed by the New Zealand Rugby Union. Mr. A. C. Kitto: If this is carried has Hawke’s Bay the right of challenge again. Mr. Dean: That rests with us. Mr. Leith: Our rules say that no union shall challenge for the shield more than once in a season. Mr. Fletcher: What right of appeal is there against this decision ? Mr. Dean: They can go to the Appeal Council. Mr. McKenzie: You need not be afraid of us challenging again, gentlemen.

When tlje resolution was carried, there being only Mr. Mullany’s voice heard against it, Mr. McKenzie said

“Well, I may tell you, gentlemen, that my union has decided to go to the Supreme Court for an injunction against this decision.”

Mr. Wylie: Can you do that? Mr. McKenzie: We can. We are both incorporated societies. Mr. Wylie: Well I think that you should exhaust your right of appeal first. Mr. McKenzie: In any case, until this thing is decided, the shield stays where it is. Legal opinion in Wellington is that Hawke’s Bay has considerable chance of success if it takes the case to the Supreme Court. “Notwithstanding the opinion of the chairman of the New Zealand Rugby Union, that legal domicile and Rugby domicile are two different things, it is difficult to believe that the court can look at the matter from other than a legal standpoint,” said one leading counsel to-day. “On the report which I have seen there seems no lack of evidence that Barclay was certainly domiciled in Hawke’s Bay, and that he never left the province without the intention of returning. The New Zealand Rugby Union’s rule, also, is not explicit, and does not seem to demand that a player must be resident w'ithin the boundaries of the union for the three weeks immediately prior to a representative match in which he takes part, but merely that he should have had his home in the province for three weeks. If Hawke’s Bay brings .the action on an originating summons to obtain an interpretation of the rule, it will be a banco matter and no Special fixture will be needed for the case, and the whole thing will be decided at a very early date. If, however, the Bay elects to proceed for a mandamus, that is for an injunction against the New Zealand Union’s decision that the Ranfurly Shield must be returned to Wairarapa, then the case will have to be set down, and it will be some time before the matter is decided.”