Emergency Legislation in UK Law

It gave power to magistrates upon complaint to make abatement orders if two medical practitioners certified the "filthy and unwholesome condition of any dwelling house or other building, or…the accumulation of any offensive or noxious matter, refuse, dung, or offal, or…the existence of any foul or offensive drain, privy, or cesspool" and that the same was "likely to be prejudicial to the health of the occupiers, or of the persons whose habitations are in the neighbourhood…" The Act of 1846 was renewed by the Nuisance Removal and Diseases Prevention Act 1848 (11 & 12 Vict. c. 123) and consolidated with amendments by the Nuisances Removal Act 1855 (18 & 19 Vict. c. 121

I quite agree that when a statute employs a concept which may change in content with advancing knowledge, technology or social standards, it should be interpreted as it would be currently understood. So the concept of a vehicle has the same meaning today as it did in 1800, even though it includes methods of conveyance which would not have been imagined by a legislator of those days.

The Plaintiff's right to particulars however is based upon a much broader ground, a principle which again is one of the pillars of liberty in that in English law every imprisonment is prima facie unlawful, and that it is for a person directing imprisonment to justify his act. The only exception is in respect of imprisonment ordered by a judge, who from the nature of his office cannot be sued, and the validity of whose judicial decisions cannot in such proceedings as the present be questioned.

In the first place, it is important to have in mind that the Regulation in question is a war measure. But in a time of emergency when the life of the whole nation is at stake it may well be that a Regulation for the defence of the realm may quite properly have a meaning which because of its drastic invasion of the liberty of the subject the Courts would be slow to attribute to a peace time measure.

However, it may be said that this leaves the true relation between questions (iii) and (iv) unresolved. A possible approach, as it seems to me, is to ask a compendious question in place of (iii): are the circumstances of X and Y so similar as to call (in the mind of a rational and fair-minded person) for a positive justification for the less favourable treatment of Y in comparison with X?

It is the grounds which were in his mind at the time which must be found to be reasonable grounds for the suspicion which he has formed. It is the grounds which were in his mind at the time which must be found to be reasonable grounds for the suspicion which he has formed.

It is the arresting officer's own account of the information which he had which matters, not what was observed by or known to anyone else. It is the arresting officer's own account of the information which he had which matters, not what was observed by or known to anyone else.