Under Section 1 of the Profiteering Act 1919, the Board of Trade had power to receive and investigate complaints of excessive profiteering. Section 2 of the Act gave a power to establish local committees to make such reports with a view to prosecution, and empowered the Board of Trade to delegate their powers for prosecutions to local authorities. The Newcastle Profiteering Committee had reported the Appellants for excessive charges on the sale of chocolate biscuits, and intended to institute proceedings.
Held: The House considered section 47 of the 1973 Act.
Lord Birkenhead LC said: ‘Now, we have in this case the provision contained in an Act of Parliament that the Board of Trade, or those to whom they delegate this power, shall ‘take proceedings’ against the seller before a Court of summary jurisdiction if in their judgment the circumstances so require, and the sub-section goes on to provide that if in ‘such proceedings’ it is found that the complaint is established certain consequences – namely, alternatively a fine or imprisonment, shall follow. But the proceedings in respect of which it is provided that there shall be either a fine or imprisonment, if there be a conviction, are the proceedings which are taken by the Board, or its representative, in pursuance of the peremptory terms which are used in the sub-section; and I am unable to see how it can be even contended that these proceedings are not proceedings within the meaning of the language used by Lord Esher and not impeached by counsel for the appellants in his argument.
It has long been recognised that the words under consideration are to be widely, and not restrictively, construed. I find myself in agreement with the whole of Lord Esher’s judgment.
Reference was made in the argument and in the judgments below to a later decision, PULBROOK, Ex parte, which indeed, if the matter were in any way doubtful, would, if accepted in this House, throw a great light upon the only question which requires decision. It was there held that an appeal does not lie from an order made by a Judge at Chambers under section 8 of the Law of Libel (amendment) Act, 1888 (51 and 52 Vict. C. 64), allowing a criminal prosecution to be commenced against the proprietor, publisher, editor, or person responsible for the publication of a newspaper, for libel published therein. In such a case the order which is made by a Judge at Chambers is not necessarily followed by any proceedings at all; the person who has so obtained the order of the Judge may, or he may not, initiate a prosecution upon the strength of such order. It was, nevertheless held, and in my judgment rightly held, that there is no appeal from such an order because it is given in a criminal matter. This decision was reached, although the Act itself, by directing that no prosecution shall be commenced without the order of a Judge plainly recognises that the actual commencement of the prosecution is a later and a distinguishable stage in the matter.
. .
I am of the opinion, for these reasons, that this was an order made in a criminal cause or matter, and that no appeal from it can be heard. The appeal therefore fails, and I move your Lordships accordingly.’
Lord Sumner agreed: ‘I think that when the local Profiteering Act committee resolved in the terms in which they did resolve, not only that there should be a refund of one half-penny, but that there should be a direction that proceedings be taken, they had already satisfied all conditions precedent, because it had appeared to them that the circumstances required them to take the proceedings which thereupon they proceeded to take; and the passing of that resolution was in my opinion not the mere satisfaction of a condition but was itself the first step in taking proceedings against the seller, although no doubt as a matter of fact subsequent steps would be taken personally by their clerk prosecuting on their behalf, and satisfying the words of the Act that they should take proceedings, and formally instituting what is called a prosecution before the Justices. It seems to me that the commencement of those proceedings by passing the resolution was itself the commencement of a criminal matter . . ‘
Lord Birkenhead LC, Lord Sumner
(1921) 90 LJ (KB) 1064
Judicature Act 1873 47
England and Wales
Citing:
Approved – Ex parte Alice Woodhall CA 8-May-1888
Extradition proceedings are in their nature criminal proceedings. Lindley LJ said: ‘Can we say that the application in the present case is not an application in a criminal cause or matter? I think that in substance it certainly is. Its whole object . .
Cited by:
Cited – Belhaj and Another v Director of Public Prosecutions and Another SC 4-Jul-2018
Challenge to decision not to prosecute senior Intelligence Service officials for alleged offences in connection with his unlawful rendition and mistreatment in Libya. The issue here was whether on the hearing of the application for judicial review, . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Updated: 30 July 2021; Ref: scu.666305
