Scottish Court of Session Decisions

This was a suspension brought by Mr John Croall, coach-proprietor, Edinburgh, for the purpose of setting aside a conviction obtained against him in the Police-court of Edinburgh for causing the Dunfermline coach to stand at and start from a place different from that appointed by the magistrates under by-laws said to be passed in virtue of a certain section of the Edinburgh Provisional Order.

The by-law said to be contravened was in these terms—“The Dalkeith, Lasswade, and Dunfermline omnibuses shall start from the west end of Kennedy's Hotel;” and the section of the Provisional Order (sec. 109) said to authorise this by-law was as follows:— “The Magistrates shall be empowered, and they are hereby authorised, to prevent within the limits of their jurisdiction the plying or running of omnibuses or other carriages for the conveyance of passengers which shall be in a state of disrepair or insecurity, or not adapted in all other respects for the conveyance of passengers with safety and comfort, or drawn by horses not sufficiently strong or in good condition, or not sufficiently trained or broken in, and that by imposing penalties not exceeding for each offence five pounds on the owners or contractors or drivers of such omnibuses or other carriages which shall be found by the Magistrate or Judge of police before whom the same may be brought to be in an unsafe or unfit state for the conveyance of passengers, or not drawn as aforesaid: and the Magistrates are further empowered to make by-laws for regulating the number of passengers to be carried by and times of running of such omnibuses or other carriages, the places at which the same shall stand, the times at which the same shall start, and all other matters tending to promote regularity and public convenience; and may vary and alter the same from time to time, and may enforce the same against the proprietors or conductors or drivers of such omnibuses and other carriages in like manner and under a like penalty.” The suspender maintained that the magistrates had no power under the above section to interfere with the arrangements of the Dunfermline coach, which was a stage-coach carrying Her Majesty's mails, and otherwise acting as a public carrier, and which had for forty years started from the door of the suspender's office, whence alone it was convenient that it should start, He argued that, looking to the intent and scope of the Provisional Order, it was impossible to hold that the section founded on applied to any carriages other than those which were used for urban or suburban traffic.

Clark and Mackintosh for suspender.

Solicitor-General (Young, Q.C.) and Gifford for respondent.

At advising—

The Court held that the section of the Provisional Order applied to the Dunfermline coach and to all other carriages for the conveyance of passengers traversing the magistrates' jurisdiction, whether they plied exclusively within the jurisdiction, or merely started from it, or merely passed through it. The magistrates had therefore power to make the by-laws in question, and the reasons of suspension, so far as founded on defect of jurisdiction, fell to be repelled.