On behalf of Deputy McGilligan, I move amendment No. 1:—
In page 7, Section 9 (1), to delete all words after the word "court" in line 6 down to and including the word "dismissal" in line 7 and substitute therefore the words "the Justice of the District Court may, on the application of the complainant refer any question of law arising in such proceedings by way of case stated".
The purpose of the amendment is to provide that the only appeal from a dismiss in a prosecution of this kind under this measure will be on a question of law, arising in the course of the proceedings, and then only by way of case stated. This Section 9 introduces for the first time a very serious and far-reaching principle in criminal procedure. I do not know how this particular section eluded the vigilance of the Ceann Comhairle, when it was put in by way of amendment on the Committee Stage of the Bill. It was only by accident that I saw it at the time, and, certainly, if it had been possible for us to have been present when the amendment was introduced, we would have taken objection on a point of order that it was entirely outside the scope of the Bill and introduced a principle which had not been embodied on the Second Reading of the Bill. Deputies should be aware of this fact, that this section, introduced by way of amendment on the Committee Stage of the Bill, brought into the Bill a principle which was not in the Bill when it was passed on Second Reading. The principle is that, for the first time in a criminal case, there is an appeal given by the person who is entitled to bring the proceedings, in other words, in a State case there is an appeal given from a dismiss by the district justice. I am not aware that any justification was given for the introduction of that principle on the Committee Stage of the Bill. Unfortunately, I was not able to be present. I missed it by a few moments.
Deputies, perhaps, are not aware of the fact that in a recent case the Supreme Court decided that a customs prosecution was a criminal cause or matter, and that that being so no appeal lay from a dismiss in favour of the citizen to the Circuit Court. The right of the citizen always has been, where he is convicted, to appeal to the Circuit Court. The prosecution has not that right. The Supreme Court held, notwithstanding the fact that it had been previously held in other cases that the Revenue Commissioners had the right of appeal to the Circuit Court, that that was not the law at all, and that a customs prosecution was a criminal cause or matter. It is interesting to notice that in the case decided in the Supreme Court—the Gethings case—which was, I think, a case for exporting prohibited goods, namely 240 dozen of eggs, it was brought under the Scrap Iron Act of 1938; in other words, that the exporting of eggs was contrary to the Scrap Iron Act. The Supreme Court held —having teased the matter out—that a prosecution under the Scrap Iron Act of 1938 for exporting eggs was a criminal cause or matter and that, therefore, there was no appeal.
At the very time that this House was discussing the Military Service Pensions Act and the advisability of interfering with the decisions of our courts, this amendment was slipped in on the Committee Stage of the Bill. I want to register my formal protest against that procedure and against the principle embodied in this Bill. I do not know why that was not seen by the Ceann Comhairle. Private Deputies know that their amendments are subjected to the greatest possible scrutiny. Even up to yesterday, a number of amendments that we put in to various Bills were rejected by the Ceann Comhairle on the ground that they introduced on the Committee Stage something that had not been embodied in the principle of the Bill on the Second Reading.