COURT DECLARES REGULATIONS INVALID

Wairarapa Times-Age, 23 May 1939, Page 5

COURT DECLARES REGULATIONS INVALID

Not Authorised by Parliament in Customs Act

MR JUSTICE CALLAN’S JUDGMENT

CLAIM BY AUCKLAND COMPANY SUCCEEDS

(By Telegraph—Press Association.) AUCKLAND, May 22. “In the result, the Import Control Regulations, 1938, are, in my opinion, not valid,” said Mr Justice Callan in a resetved judgment issued today in the Supreme Court in an action to determine the validity of the Import Control Regulations introduced last December. The ease, a test action, brought by F. E. Jackson and Company, importers, against the Collector of Customs, claiming delivery of certain imported goods, plus £lOO damages for wrongful detention, occupied the Court for four days. Plaintiff was represented by Mr A. 11. Johnstone, K.C., and Mr L. K. Munro, and, for the Collector of Customs, the SolicitorGeneral, Mr H. 11. Cornish, K.C., appeared in person, with him Mr V. R. Meredith and Mr N. I. Smith. Plaintiff ordered from Sydney and endeavoured to land kerosene pumps valued at £l4 4s, but though he had paid dues, the Collector of Customs refused to deliver the goods till a licence under the Import Control Regulations was produced. Plaintiff contended that those regulations were without authority and void. During the hearing it was agreed that his Honour’s judgment should be treated as “final.” This means that either party has four months in which to give notice of appeal, instead of one month. His Honour gave judgment for plaintiff company for possession of the goods mentioned in the statement of claim, or for £l4 4s, if possession could not be had. At the joint request? of counsel, the claim for damages was to stand over for further consideration, if that should be desired. The plaintiff company was also awarded £125 costs, in addition to disbursements against the defendant. In the course of a lengthy and detailed judgment, his Honour said: “The duty of the Court is to search for the intention of Parliament and to support regulations that keep within that intention, and to disallow such as do not. The intention of the Legislature, as revealed by its enactments, is a controlling factor, but, in discovering that intention, it is not inappropriate to consider what effects the regulations would have if valid.

“At an early stage in this judgment I endeavoured to state what are, in my opinion, the powers conferred upon the Minister of Customs by the regulations if they are valid; what is their true scope and what legal effects they are capable of producing. lam satisfied by this consideration that'they are not regulations the making of which was authorised by Parlia, ment in the Customs Act. ’ ’