Section 4 of the 1920 Act provided that the Parliament of Northern Ireland had power to make laws for the peace, order and good government of Northern Ireland, but not to make laws in respect of, among other things, trade with any place out of Northern Ireland. Challenge was made to the 1934 Act which purported to regulate the supply of milk in Northern Ireland which imposed controls on every person who within Northern Ireland sold or exposed for sale milk, whether produced within or without the territory of Northern Ireland.
Held: The Act was a law for the peace, order and good government of Northern Ireland in respect of precautions taken to secured the health of its inhabitants, not a law in respect of trade.
Lord Atkin went on to explain the ‘pith and substance doctrine’, saying: ‘These questions affecting limitation on the legislative powers of subordinate parliaments or the distribution of powers between parliaments in a federal system are now familiar, and I do not propose to cite the whole range of authority which has largely arisen in discussion of the powers of Canadian Parliaments. It is well established that you are to look at the ‘true nature and character of the legislation’ . . ‘the pith and substance of the legislation.’ If, on the view of the statute as a whole, you find that the substance of the legislation is within the express powers, then it is not invalidated if incidentally it affects matters which are outside the authorized field. The legislation must not under the guise of dealing with one matter in fact encroach upon the forbidden field. Nor are you to look only at the object of the legislator. An Act may have a perfectly lawful object, eg to promote the health of the inhabitants, but may seek to achieve that object by invalid methods, eg a direct prohibition of any trade with a foreign country.’
Judges:
Lord Atkin
Citations:
[1937] AC 863
Statutes:
Government of Ireland Act 1920, Milk and Milk Products Act (Northern Ireland) Act 1934
Citing:
Cited – Charles Russell v The Queen PC 23-Jun-1882
(New Brunswick) The defendant had been convicted of unlawfully selling intoxicating Licquor contrary to the 1878 Act. He challenged his conviction saying that the Act had been outwith the powers of the Parliament of Canada as provided for by the . .
Cited by:
Cited – Imperial Tobacco Ltd v The Lord Advocate SC 12-Dec-2012
The claimant company said that the 2010 Act was outside the competence of the Scottish Parliament insofar as it severely restricted the capacity of those selling cigarettes to display them for sale. They suggested two faults. First, that the subject . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Constitutional, Northern Ireland, Agriculture
Updated: 04 May 2022; Ref: scu.468810
