A COUNCIL'S DILEMMA.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVI, Issue 221, 18 March 1914, Page 2

A COUNCIL'S DILEMMA.

NO POWER TO* SUSPENiJ Dl. k, 01U)Ell-! LY MEMJSEk. By Telegraph—Press Association. Wellington, March 17. Judgment was delivered by the Chief Justice tliis morning in the case _ii\ which Alexander Herbert Wilkie, m#nber of th'j Ohakune Borough Councl, applied for a writ of injunction restraining the Mayor and other members of the Ohakune Council from preventing plaintiff attending the meeting of the council to-day or at any other meetings and exercising bis lawful ridits as councillor. After holding that the court had i jurisdiction to interfere by injunction ! if the circumstances of the case warranted, bis Honour held that the action |of plaintiff brought him under the ! council's by-law relating to disorder, | and that, the Mayor and council having I found he was disorderly, the court could not interfere, with the finding. He held, however, that neither the Mayor nor the,', Borough Council bad power to expel or suspend a member, only a power to impose a penalty, being under part 2 of the by-laws and in section 349 of the statute, which agreed. He also held that, the resolution of suspension W3 clearly illegal, and. granted an injunction with costs of five guineas.