Thomas v Small

• Jurisdiction: Trinidad & Tobago
• Court: Court of Appeal (Trinidad and Tobago)
• Judge: McShine, J.A.
• Judgment Date: 13 October 1966
• Neutral Citation: TT 1966 CA 111
• Docket Number: No. 619 of 1966
• Date: 13 October 1966

Court of Appeal

Wooding, C.J.; McShine, J.A.; Phillips, J.A.

No. 619 of 1966

Thomas

and

Small

Appearances:

Mr. J. Makhan for the appellant.

Mr. G. des Iles, Acting Solicitor-General, appeared for the respondent.

Practice and Procedure - Judicial notice — Proclamation making area a “built — up area” — Whether Court entitled to take judicial notice of proclamation. — Appellant charged for driving a motor vehicle at a speed in excess of the limits prescribed by law for a built-up area. Convicted. Appealed. Argued that prosecution should have produced the order which made or declared that piece of road to be within a built-up area. — The Court is required to take judicial notice of the law without the need for the production of the relevant legislation. Consequently this ground of appeal must fail. Conviction affirmed.

Criminal Law - Appeal against conviction — Driving in excess of speed limit — Sentence — $100 fine in the alternative 60 days hard labour. Whether severe. — Appellant convicted of driving a motor vehicle at a speed in excess of the limits prescribed by law for a built-up area — Fined $100 or in the alternative 60 days hard labour — Appealed against sentence — Considered severe — Magistrate was unduly severe in imposing a penalty of $100 on the appellant — Appellant had a clean record and there was nothing to suggest that this speeding in excess of the limits on that road was accompanied by any features of real danger — A magistrate must permit himself scope for the exercise of a discretion in imposing punishment. Fine of $50 imposed instead with the alternative of 2 months hard labour.

McShine, J.A.

1 In this matter the appellant was charged for driving a motor vehicle at a speed in excess of the limits prescribed by law at the 5 ¹/₂ mile post on the Western Main Road at Point Cumana. We have been told that that piece of road at the 5 ¹/₂ mile post is in the vicinity of the Yacht Club and for some distance west of that point. The appellant has appealed against that conviction on the ground, as he contends that the magistrate erred in law in failing to consider whether or not there was proper evidence that the area or stretch of road in question was within a built-up area. Counsel submits, it was for the magistrate to be satisfied that this is no built-up area, and the prosecution should have produced the order which makes or declares that piece of road to be within a built-up area.

2 That submission brings this Court to a consideration of the relevant legislation. S. 44 of the Motor Vehicles and Road Traffic Ordinance, Ch.16 No. 3 has now been repealed and replaced s.3 of the Motor Vehicles and Road Traffic (Amendment) Ordinance No.47 of 1956, and s.3 of that Ordinance provides that: “It shall not be lawful for any person to drive a motor vehicle of any class or description on any road --”

(We would not recite paragraph (a) as it is not apposite to these circumstances.)

“(b) within a built-up area at any speed greater than the speed specified in the Second Schedule hereto as the maximum speed in relation to a vehicle of that class or description”.

3 In the second schedule of this Amendment Ordinance there is prescribed for the class of motor vehicle which the appellant drove, a maximum speed of 30 miles per hour within a built-up area. The evidence is that the appellant drove at a...