R v Clare Justices

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Judgment Date: 24 January 1905
• Date: 24 January 1905
• Court: King's Bench Division (Ireland)

The King (at the Prosecution of James M'Grath)

and

The County Court Judge and Chairman of Quarter Sessions and Other Justices of the County of Clare (1).

K. B. Div.

CASES

DETERMINED BY

THE KING'S BENCH DIVISION

OF

THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE IN IRELAND,

AND ON APPEAL THEREFROM IN

THE COURT OF APPEAL,

AND BY

THE COURT FOR CROWN CASES RESERVED.

1905.

Justices — Jurisdiction — Complaint — Conviction — Assault — 24 & 25 Vict. c. 100, s. 40 — Single offence, with matter of aggravation — Reversal at Quarter Sessions upon the erroneous ground that the order was bad on its face — Certiorari — Mandamus.

Justices at Petty Sessions made an order in the following form:—“Upon the hearing of a complaint that, &c., the defendant did unlawfully assault the complainant, by striking him on the face with a stone and cutting him, an order was made on, &c., against Cornelius Collins, farmer's son, to the following effect, viz.—Convicted; fined 21s., with 20s. costs, and in default of payment forthwith to be imprisoned in Limerick Prison for one calendar month, with hard labour, unless said sums be sooner paid.” On appeal by Collins to Quarter Sessions, that Court reversed the Petty Sessions order, on the ground that the conviction was bad on its face, for not stating the offence for which the accused was convicted:—

Held, that the complaint, being for a single offence, which the justices at Petty Sessions had jurisdiction to entertain, viz. an assault under 24 & 25 vict. c. 100, s. 40, coupled (by describing how the assault was committed) with matter of aggravation, the conviction was good on its face, and the Court of Quarter Sessions were wrong in reversing it upon the preliminary point, without deciding the case upon the merits, and that therefore a certiorari

should be awarded to quash the order made at Quarter Sessions, and, on its return, a mandamus to the Chairman and Justices, to proceed to hear and determine the appeal.

Motion to make absolute a conditional order of certiorari to bring up and quash an order of the Chairman of Quarter Sessions and Justices of the county of Clare, made at Kilrush Quarter Sessions on the 13th October, 1904.

James M'Grath, of Decomade, in the county Clare, farmer, caused a summons under the Petty Sessions (Ireland) Act, 1851, to be issued at his suit against Cornelius Collins, of the same place, farmer's son, charging him with having, on the 24th June, 1904, unlawfully assaulted and beaten him by striking him on the face with a stone and cutting him. Cornelius Collins appeared before the Justices at Kildysart Petty Sessions on the 11th July, 1904, in obedience to the summons and, after hearing the evidence, the Justices made an order which was certified as follows:—“Upon the hearing of a complaint that, on the 24th June, 1904, at Deco-made, in the county of Clare, the defendant did unlawfully assault the complainant by striking him on the face with a stone and cutting him, an order was made on the 11th day of July, 1904, by Justices present against Cornelius Collins, farmer s son, to the following effect, viz.—convicted and fined 20s., increased to 21s. on the application of defendant's solicitor, with 20s. costs, and, in default of payment, forthwith to be imprisoned in Limerick Prison for one calendar month, with hard labour, unless said sums be sooner paid.” Cornelius Collins having appealed, the case came before the Chairman and Justices at Quarter Sessions or the 13th October, 1904, when the Chairman reversed the order of the Justices on the ground that the conviction was “bad on its face, for not stating the offence for which accused was convicted.” James M'Grath, on application to the Court on the 22nd November, 1904, obtained a conditional order directing a writ of certiorari to issue to the Chairman and Justices at Quarter Sessions to quash their adjudication on appeal, on the grounds that it was made without, and in excess of, jurisdiction, and that it was bad upon the face of it, inasmuch as such Chairman and Justices held that the conviction was a conviction made in respect of alternative charges, whereas, in fact, it was not so. No cause was shown, and upon the case coming before the Court on the 21st December, 1904, on an application by the prosecutor to make absolute the conditional order, the case was allowed to stand over until the 12th January, 1905, in order that the conditional order, and the notice of motion to make same absolute, should be served upon the Chief Crown Solicitor, and upon the defendant in the Court below.

Charles F. Doyle, for the prosecutor:—

The jurisdiction of the Justices at Quarter Sessions is only to hear and determine on the merits, making such amendments as may be necessary and legitimate: they have no jurisdiction to erroneously determine that the conviction appealed from is bad on its face.

The decision on a preliminary point is open to review by the King's Bench, if it was a decision (as here) which the Justices at Quarter Sessions had no jurisdiction to arrive at.

No doubt a certiorari will not be granted to quash an acquittal where within jurisdiction; but the action of the magistrates here was at the same time a refusal to adjudicate, and an assumption of jurisdiction which they did not possess, viz. to erroneously question a conviction of Petty Sessions.

So also the Court will not quash an order of Quarter Sessions where the Justices are judges of law and fact, and act as such: here they have acted as neither.

[He referred to Reg. (Giant's Causeway Tramway Company) v. Justices of Antrim (1); Reg. (Drohan) v. Justices of Waterford (2); The King v. Allen (3); The King v. Ridgway (4).]

There was no appearance for Cornelius Collins, or any of the other parties served with the conditional order.

Cur. adv. vult.

Charles F. Doyle, for the prosecutor:—

Palles, C.B.:—

This is an application to make absolute a conditional order for a certiorari, to bring up for the purpose of being quashed an order of Quarter Sesssions, made on an appeal from a conviction of Justices at Petty Sessions.

The offence for which the defendant was convicted was that he did “unlawfully assault the complainant by striking him on the face with a stone and cutting him.”

The order of Quarter Sessions was—“Order reversed on ground that conviction was bad on the face of it, for not stating the offence for which the accused was convicted.”

The first question for our determination is whether the conviction is bad on its face—for if it be, the order of the Quarter Sessions is right, and in that event there would be no ground for the certiorari.

The conviction was under 24 & 25 Vict. c. 100, sect. 42, which enacts—“Where any person shall unlawfully assault or beat any other person, two Justices … may hear and determine such offence … and the offender, upon conviction thereof before them … shall forfeit such fine as shall appear to them to be meet, not exceeding, with costs (if ordered), the sum of £5.”

By sect. 44, if the Justices at the hearing “shall deem the offence not to be proved…, and shall accordingly dismiss the complaint,” they make out, and deliver to the party accused, a certificate, which sect. 45 makes a bar to any other proceedings.

The above section does not, in terms, confer a jurisdiction on Justices in cases of wounding or cutting; but every wounding or cutting includes an assault and battery, and it is now settled that the magistrates have jurisdiction under the above section to summarily determine a complaint of assault which in fact includes or was accompanied by wounding. In Reg. v. Walker (1) and in The Queen v. Elrington (2), a plea of autrefois convict, before Justices, under a corresponding statute was held a good bar to an indictment for felonious stabbing, and a certificate of Justices under a corresponding statute, 9 Geo. 4, c. 21, sects. 27–29, was pleaded in bar with success to an indictment founded on the same

facts charging malicious wounding and occasioning grievous bodily harm.

In the latter case, Blackburn, J., with his usual good sense, points out that, as now, wounding to be indictable as a substantive crime, different from an assault, need not necessarily be with an instrument; there are few assaults in which there may not be some pretext for saying there was a wounding. To the same effect is Wilkinson v. Dutton (1).

In The Queen v. Elrington (2) the information charged only a common assault; but if the jurisdiction of the Justices was not ousted by the fact that the assault complained of included a wounding, I do not see how the statement in the summons and conviction here, that the assault included a cutting, can oust the jurisdiction. It is to be observed that the common form of indictment for a common assault includes a wounding as a matter of aggravation; so here the summons can, if necessary, be read as charging an assault by striking, with a wounding, as a matter of aggravation.

For these reasons, I am of opinion that the Justices had jurisdiction to entertain the complaint. The learned Chairman appears to have been of opinion that the summons contained alternative charges, or more charges than one, and that the conviction being in the terms of, or by reference to it, was uncertain on which charge the conviction was had.

What I have already said shows that I am of opinion that the conviction was for but one single charge of common assault, and consequently that it is good on its face. It follows that the order of the Quarter Sessions is wrong; and as the jurisdiction of the Justices is limited to proceeding according to the course of the Common Law, unless the course has been altered by statute, the error goes to jurisdiction.

That order, it is to be observed, does not proceed to acquit, so we have not to consider the question discussed in the line of cases...