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W v Ministry of Transport (1990) 7 FRNZ 75 (HC)

Case summary provided by BROOKERS

Name: W v Ministry of Transport
Reported: (1990) 7 FRNZ 75
File number: AP232/90
Date: 23 October 1990
Court: High Court
Location: Wellington
Judge: Ellis J
Charge: Under Transport Act 1962, s66
CYPF no: s272
Key Title: Jurisdiction of the Youth Court - Charge type
Brooker’s Summary:

Youth justice - Transfer of proceedings - Statutory interpretation - Young person committed a series of offences - One offence dealt with in District Court, the rest in Youth Court - Young person appealed District Court conviction on ground that Judge should have ordered a transfer of the charge to the Youth Court - Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act 1989, s 272.

In December 1989, the appellant, a young person in terms of the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act 1989 ("the Act") was charged in the District Court for committing an offence under s 66 Transport Act 1962. She was convicted and discharged without penalty in July 1990. The appellant, a solvent abuser, had also committed various offences between October 1989 and January 1990 for which she was brought before the Youth Court. She now appealed on the ground that in terms of s 272(5) of the Act, the District Court should have exercised its discretion under s 272(5)(c) to transfer the charge to the Youth Court to be dealt with along with all the other charges the appellant was facing.

Held, allowing the appeal:

(1) There are two matters of fact which must first be determined before the Court's discretion can be exercised under s 272(5)(c). The first is that the young person must be charged with another offence before the Youth Court and that offence and the traffic offence must "arise out of the same events or series of events". There is no need to limit the events to any particular defined period of time but the offences must have a degree of commonality so that they could be described as a "series". Plainly, discrete events must be serial in nature when viewed in terms of time, but the legislation directs attention to the events being grouped more by reference to a suitable common disposition in the Youth Court.

(2) The prosecution for traffic offences not punishable by imprisonment will ordinarily be commenced by the enforcement authority in the District Court. It must follow that the Court which will consider whether it is desirable that the charges commenced in the District Court and those in the Youth Court will be heard together, will be the District Court. Hence, the Court referred to in s 272(5)(c) includes the District Court. It follows therefore that the District Court Judge was obliged to consider evidence available relating to the charges in the Youth Court so that he could decide whether or not the traffic prosecution was to be dealt with before the Youth Court together with the other charges. It does not appear that satisfactory evidence was placed before the Judge to enable him to consider the position and in particular, whether the present traffic offence arose out of the same event or series of events that gave rise to the other charge or charges[(1990) 7 FRNZ 75, 76]

Appeal

This was an appeal against a conviction of a traffic offence by the District Court Judge.

The facts appear from the judgment.