Important Case in the French Court The French Consular Court has just decided a case particularly interesting for all residents of the French Concession, one in which the functions of the Municipal Council as a commission of highways and public health were under discussion. The case arose out of a decision of the Council forbidding the operation of a heavy oil motor in a workshop situated in Rue Ratard, a decision come to on the complaint of the neighbours: and after numerous its and. inquiries by the Municipal services.
The proprietor of the workshop, having originally submitted to this decision, now claimed from the Council damages at the rate of Tls. 3,000 a day from the date of the decision.
On behalf of the plaintiff it was argued that the Council had no right to make such rules and ensure their application, and that the Council should have brought the matter before the Courts who alone had power to make such orders and enforce them. It was further pleaded that the Council. being nothing more than an official ascombly of residents, had no right to function as municipal police and, in consequence, no rights as a commission on highways.
For the Council it was submitted that the powers of administration and control of high ways, ete. were the very basis of its functions and constituted its raison d'etre and it had consequently the right to forbid the operation of a motor engine which was a nuisance and a menace to health. In doing so the Council had acted as an administrative body whose acts could not be passed upon by a judicial tribunal, but only by an administrative tribunal, by virtue of the fundamental © principle separating the two functions.
The Consular Court in a closely reasoned judgement supported the argument of the Council and, consequently, ordered that, the plaintiff could take his case before an administrative Court if he so wished, refusing at the same time to discuss the powers of the Munici, Council.
Me. d'Auxion de Ruffe appeared for the plaintiff and Me. Premet for the Municipal Council.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.