Intention versus Performance
Page 24
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AFAVOURABLE decision given last week by Taunton magistrates in a case concerning the taxation of container vehicles (reported on page 433) should be treated with reserve. They dismissed summonses against a company who had taken advantage of Section 26 (2) (b) of the Vehicles (Excise) Act, 1949, and had paid duty only on a platform lorry, although the container that it carried had been removed only once during the currency of the Road Fund licence.
The defence had to prove that the container was constructed or adapted for the purpose of being lifted on or off the vehicle with goods inside it— this, in the particular instance, was self-evident – and that it was used in that way from time to time in the ordinary course of business.
The words "from lime to time" are 'extremely vague and in law they have on more than one occasion been held to mean no more than "as and when required," or " when the occasion arises." It is impossible, therefore, to say before the termination of the licence that a vehicle cannot legally be taxed without its container just because the container has not been removed to date. It might work for 11 months without removal and then "the occasion might arise" several times in the last month. There is no doubt that the Taunton magistrates' decision is contrary to the spirit of the Act and that what was intended was the narrower interpretation of ordinary course of business" put forward by the prosecution. However, it is a thoroughly bad piece of drafting and what is meant to be said is not the same as what is actually said.
It is a hallowed canon of legal construction that where the legislature is responsible for an equivocal word or an ambiguity in a statute of a penal nature, the benefit of the doubt should be given to the subject and against the State, which has failed to explain itself. Whether the Taunton decision will result in any amending legislation is unknown, but it is not a ruling of a superior court and there is no reason to assume that another court of summary jurisdiction would make the same decision in a similar ease.
The weakest link in the decision is undoubtedly the interpretation of-" in the ordinary course of business." The point about the expression "from time to time " did not affect the issue so much, but there is little doubt that a higher court would accept the liberal interpretation of the words in view of the existence of authoritative precedents of great antiquity.