ARBITRATION COURT FINES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 60, 23 August 1907, Page 2

ARBITRATION COURT FINES.

PAYMENT ENFORCEABLE. ,

JUDGMENT OF APPEAL COURT.

Per Presa Association. Wellington, August 22. The Appeal Court gave judgment today in the case of Keddie v. Millar, involving tlio power of the Arbitration Court to enforce payment of ita fines by imprisonment. Four of the Bench, the Chief Justice and Judges Cooper, Chapman and Button, decided that l.io Arbitration Court had that power, Judges Williams and Denniston dissenting for reasons given when delivering judgment, when the case was before hin° in Dunedin. The Chief Justice, in delivering judgment, reviewed the Acts bearing on the subject, and_ said the Arbitration Court not having been ( given specific power to enforce its fines, I it becamo necessary to refer to the code J of civil procedure to leain htm ilio ) judgment was to be enforced. In this . he considered the power was to "bo I found, and he concluded: "Whilst, therefore, I concur in the statement tlut before power of attachment to be deemed applicable, the Statute must be plain and clear, I aw of opinion the statute, read in its ordinary meaning was intended to give and Old give all the power to enforce an order for payment of a fine that rule 386 of the code of civil procedure gives, and that an order for payment of a fine did not become a judgment for money in an action for debt or damages, so as to bring it within the exception mentioned in the rule. There have bei-n many cases cited and many legal bypaths trodden in argument, but in ?ny opinion the issue is as I have stated it, and little or no aid can be got in interpreting the statute from perusal of these ""clauses, or from exploring these by-paths. lam of opinion the apnelliint must succeed, and judgment below reversed, with a direction to the Supreme Court to issue an attachment/'