Queen-Empress vs Billar

John Edge, C.J. and Burkitt, J.—A Magistrate investigated a charge of theft in a dwelling house preferred against Billar. Without having convicted Billar of any offence, and of course without having sentenced him, the Magistrate sent the case to the Magistrate of the District. The Magistrate of the District, omitting to notice that Billar had not been convicted and had not been sentenced, and that he had no jurisdiction to make an order for detention in a Reformatory School in his case, ordered that Billar should be detained in a Reformatory School for six years. That order was entirely illegal. There was no jurisdiction to make it. It was not an order for detention in a Reformatory School passed in substitution for an order for transportation or imprisonment; consequently this Court is not precluded by Section 16 of Act No. VIII of 1897 from dealing with the order of the Magistrate of the District. We set aside the order of the Magistrate of the District, and direct that the Magistrate of the District, or some other competent Magistrate to whom the case may be assigned by him, shall proceed with the investigation of the charge according to law.