Binding over to Keep the Peace or Be of Good Behaviour
| Published date | 01 July 1961 |
| Date | 01 July 1961 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/002201836102500307 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Binding Over to Keep the Peace
or be of Good Behaviour
THE year 1961 marks the six
hundredth
anniversary of
the
historic statute 34 Edw.
III,
c.l. which not only created
the
office of Justice of the Peace
but
is also
the
foundation
of
the
present day jurisdiction of magistrates' courts to bind
over persons to keep the peace or be of good behaviour.
It
is
appropriate, therefore, at this time to enquire into
the
powers
conferred on justices to exercise what has been called " pre-
ventive justice"
and
to consider
the
anomalies which attach
to those powers in the light of modern conditions.
The
Act of 1361 entitled
"What
sort of persons shall be
justices of the peace; and what authority they shall have'"
(a title which was shortened to
"The
Justices of
the
Peace Act,
1361" by
the
Statute Law Revision Act 1948) assigned
"for
the
keeping of the peace one
Lord
and with him three or four
of the most worthy in the county to restrain the offenders,
rioters, and all other barrators and to pursue, arrest, take and
chastise
them
according to their trespass or offence;
and
to
take of all
them
that
be (not) of good fame wherever they be
found sufficient surety of their good behaviour towards the
King
and
his people and the other duly to punish, to the
intent
that
the
people be not troubled
nor
endamaged,
nor
the
peace blemished".
In
passing, it is curious to find
that
the
word
"not"
before
"of
good fame" does
not
appear in
the
Norman
French, the language in which it is inscribed on the
Statute Roll, although it is included in the English translations
in the Statutes at Large and is inserted in many authoritative
legal text books, e.g. Dalton's Countrey Justices and Burn's
Justice of
the
Peace. However, it was decided in Lansbury v.
Riley (1914) 77J.P. 440; 3 K.B. 229
that
whatever the meaning
may be, the word
"not"
is immaterial and that
the
justices
can
bind
over whether the person is or is
not
of good fame.
One
of
the
duties imposed on
the
justices
under
this Act
was, therefore, to ensure
that
people kept
the
peace and the
zzo
To continue reading
Request your trial