Hughes v Phillips

75 CLR 436
22 ALJ 95; 48 SR (NSW) 335

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(Judgment by: Dixon J)

Between: Hughes
And: Phillips

Court:

Judges: Latham CJ
Starke J

Dixon JMcTiernan J
Williams J

Judgment date: 21 April 1948

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Judgment by:
Dixon J

I agree. I think the case entirely depends upon the meaning of the words "false in any particular." If those words cover falsity in the final net figure given in the return, then it follows that the information sufficiently stated the charge and that no complaint can be made against the information on the ground that the false result may be produced by the falsity of one or more of the constituent items in the return. On that construction of s. 227, it would not be necessary to allege the falsity of a constituent item and it would not matter that by more than one possibility could the falsity charged in the final figure be brought about. (at p443)

On the whole, I have come to the conclusion that the words "in any particular" do cover falsity in the final figure. The choice seems to be between construing those words as referring to the subordinate or constituent elements or items which go to make up the total return confining them to those constituent elements or items, and construing the words as simply meaning "in some specific or definite respect" and I think that the latter is the preferable construction to place upon them. It does not follow that, in a prosecution in which the informant avails himself of the construction which I have just assigned to those words, the magistrate may not, if the interests of justice require it, insist upon the prosecutor giving particulars of the specific items in the return the falsity of which leads to the falsity of the final figure. That is a question upon which he has a discretion which he may exercise in order to see that the defendant knows the case he has to meet and is not taken by surprise or otherwise embarrassed. (at p444)