089-NLR-NLR-V-05-JAMES-v.-LATIFF.pdf
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1901.
December 11.
Disqualification of Magistrate—Plaint by police constable—Magistrate tryingcase, also Assistant Agent and Superintendent of Police.
A Magistrate whose primary duty is not to superintend the Police,though holding the office of Superintendent of the Police, is notdisqualified to hear a case of hurt instituted by a police constable.
Rode v. Bawa (1 N. L. R. 373) explained.
appeal against a conviction for voluntarily causing hurt—
Bawa, for accused, appellant.—This conviction is bad on theground that the Magistrate who tried it is also a Superintendentof Police. Mr. Horsburgh, the Magistrate in this case, is AssistantGovernment Agent at Hambantota, and is also ex officio a Superin-tendent of the Police. The decision of this Court in Bode v.Bawa (1 N. L. B. 37-3), that a Police Official, who is also a PoliceMagistrate, cannot properly convict on a Police prosecution, applies.
•TAMES v. LATIFF.
P. C., Hambantota, 2,834.
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[Bonskr, C.J.—Thepresent caseis different. Mr.Horsburgh1901.
is not really actively associated withthe police. In thecase cited December 11.
I thought that theaccused hadsome ground forsuspecting
bias, because it wasthe Superintendent of Police who acted as
Police Magistrate.]
11th December. 1901. Bonser, C.J.—
The appeal in this case is on a point of law. It is said that theMagistrate who adjudicated upon it was disqualified from sodoing. In this case the charge was brought by a- police constableagainst the appellant for causing hurt to him. It Was heard byMr. Horsburgh, Assistant Government Agent of Hambantota,and the appellant was fined Bs. 15. The case was a triflingone. Now. it appears that Mr. Horsburgh, in addition tobeing Assistant Government Agent and Police Magistrate, isalso the general Superintendent of the Police Force in hisdistrict. He is not a member of the Police Force in the ordinarysense of the term. That circumstance appears to me to distin-guish this case from the case which was relied upon by theappellant, viz., Rode v. Bawa (1 N. L. R. 373), decided byMr. Justice Lawrie and myself. In that case what I may callthe real appointment held by the Police Magistrate was ofSuperintendent of Police, but to that had been added temporarilythe office of Additional Police Magistrate. We held in that casethat he was so identified by the fact that he was Superintendentof Police with the members of his force that there was a reason-able fear, a reasonable apprehension, of bias in his case, and that,even though there was no actual bias, a person, brought beforehim and charged by another Police Officer, might reasonablysuppose that he might be biased. Beference was made to theproverbial esprit de corps which existed in the Police Force. Now,in this case I do not think that case can apply, for superinten-dence of the police was not the primary duty of the Magistratehere, as it was in that Badulla case, and therefore the objectionurged by Mr. Bawa fails.