Mr Willcock was stopped for speeding. PC Muckle asked him to show his national registration identity card. Mr Willcock refused. PC Muckle served a notice requiring its production which Mr Willcock ignored. He was prosecuted. He argued that the emergency which had led to the Act had passed. He was convicted by the magistrates, but the magistrates imposed only an absolute discharge. He appealed.
Held: There had been a declaration that the war had come to an end but no Order in Council revoking the Act. Only one emergency was meant – the imminent outbreak of war. The policeman had really wanted the defendant’s vehicle registration number, but was still acting under standing orders requiring them to ask every person stopped to produce the identity card. Lord Goddard ‘That sort of thing tends to make motorists not law-abiding; it tends to cause resentment.’ The Act was being used for a purpose for which it was not passed. A court of seven judges had been convened to decide whether the Act remained in force. It did. It required a specific Order in Council to revoke it. ‘. . . The court wishes to express its emphatic approval of the way in which they [the magistrates] dealt with this case by granting the defendant an absolute discharge. Because the police may have powers, it does not follow that they ought to exercise them on all occasions or as a matter of routine . . . To demand production of the national registration identity card from all and sundry . . . is wholly unreasonable. This Act was passed for security purposes; it was never passed for the purposes for which it is now apparently being used. To use Acts of Parliament passed for particular purposes in war-time when the war ‘is a thing of the past . . . tends to turn law-abiding citizens into law-breakers, which is a most undesirable state of affairs.
Further, in this country we have always prided ourselves on the good feeling that exists between the police and the public, and such action tends to make people resentful of the acts of the police, and inclines them to obstruct the police instead of assisting them.’
Devlin J: ‘I think that it would be very unfortunate if the public were to receive the impression that the continuance of the state of emergency had become a sort of statutory fiction which was used as a means of prolonging legislation initiated in different circumstances and for different purposes.’
Judges:
Lord Goddard CJ, Sir Raymond Evershed MR, Somervell and Jenkins LJJ, Kilberry, Lynskey and Devlin JJ
Citations:
[1951] 2 The Times LR 373
Statutes:
National Registration Act 1939 12(4)
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Administrative, Police
Updated: 29 August 2022; Ref: scu.223014