JUDGEMENT
This is an application for an order for certiorari to quash the proceedings before the State Council on the grounds that the State Council, being only authorised to try constitutional matters, has acted without jurisdiction in convicting the applicant of an offence contra section 26 of the State Councils Ordinance, 1952, and in imposing a fine of £20.
It appears that the applicant failed to appear at destoolment proceedings. Destoolment proceedings are, of course, a constitutional matter, but although those proceedings could have been carried on without him, the act of the applicant is, in my opinion, clearly an offence under the Ordinance committed during those proceedings. The applicant's misconduct was in no sense whatsoever a constitutional matter. It is, however, also argued for the respondent that as the State Council in the charge framed alleged in the alternative that the applicant had committed a wrong according to Native Customary law the Council had' jurisdiction …