Divisional Court Cases
| Date | 01 July 1941 |
| Published date | 01 July 1941 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002201834100500303 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Divisional Court Cases
INCREASE OF PENALTY AFTER OFFENCE COMMITTED
Director
of
Public Prosecutions v.
A.
E. Lamb and B. Lamb
Samev.A.Lamb.
Samev.R.Lamb
IT
is a general principle in
the
construction
of
statutes
that
" a statute ought
not
to be construed so as to create
. new disabilities or obligations or impose new duties in respect
of transactions which were complete at the time when
the
Act came into
force"
(per
Lord
Alverstone C.J. in
Rex
v.
Chandra Dharma (1905, 2
K.B.,
at p. 338).
The
obvious
objection to making punishable an act or omission which
did
not
involve an infraction of
the
law at the date of its commission
does
not
apply with the same force where aheavier penalty
is imposed in respect of an act or omission which was a
breach of
the
law at the date when it was committed.
In
these circumstances
the
courts have
not
hesitated,
when
it
has been found
that
appropriate language has been used by
the Legislature, to construe the new enactment as applying
to an offence committed before the law was sa altered. Even
cases of this nature are necessarily rare.
One
came before
aDivisional
Court
(Humphreys,
Tucker
and
Cassels J J.) on
the
8th April last
upon
a case stated by the Chief Metropolitan
magistrate
upon
prosecutions instituted against Anthony
Ernest Lamb, Bertram Lamb, Anthony
Lamb,
and
Richard
Lamb
for breaches of regulation 5
(I)
and
(2) of
the
Defence
(Finance) Regulations, 1939.
In
this case six informations were preferred by
the
Director of Public Prosecutions,
the
two first-named
defendants being jointly charged on two informations,
and
two informations being preferred against each of the
other
two defendants separately.
The
offences substantially were
220
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