Zanetti v Hill [1962] HCA 62

High Court of Australia Dixon C.J. Kitto, Menzies and Owen JJ. Zanetti v Hill [1962] HCA 62

ORDER Appeal dismissed with costs.

Cur. adv. vult.

The following written judgments were delivered:—

Dec. 5 Dixon C.J.

By s. 65 of the Police Act, 1892-1952 W.A. (55 Vict. 27) (cf. 1954 Vol. 6 Reprinted Statutes) it is provided that every person who shall commit any of the next following offences shall be deemed an idle and disorderly person within the meaning of this Act, and shall on conviction be liable to imprisonment for any term not exceeding six calendar months with or without hard labour; there follow ten paragraphs each stating a set of conditions exposing the "person" to the liability imposed by the section. The first of those is the provision under which this case arises. It is as follows: "Every person having no visible lawful means of support or insufficient lawful means of support, who being thereto required by any Justice, or who having been duly summoned for such purpose, or brought before any Justice, shall not give a good account of his means of support to the satisfaction of such Justice." By virtue of ss. 29 and 33 of the Justices Act, 1902-1961 W.A. the reference to a justice must be taken to refer to two justices or a stipendiary magistrate. The nine other paragraphs refer to situations which fall short of some definite or specific single prohibited act which is made the offence but like the first they refer to the manner of life led or the like, to wandering, to begging, to the possession of disguises, to associating with certain undesirable classes of people. It is scarcely necessary to say that this description of legislation is traceable back to Tudor times. Of course there is a very long history extending through periods not like our own: perhaps it is enough to refer to Holdsworth's History of English Law, vol. IV, 2nd ed. (1937) p. 387 et seqq.