Attorney-General v Crockett [1911] ZATPD 136 (4 October 1911)

Contempt of Court - Jurisdiction of Supreme Court to punish summarily for Contempt ex facie curiae of Magistrate's Court

A Division of the Supreme Court has jurisdiction to punish summarily anyone who ex facie curiae commits a contempt of an inferior court, such as a magistrate's court, which has no power to deal summarily therewith
(Attorney-General vs Glasson, 1911; C.P.D. 579, not followed ; In re Blanch, 1. H.C.G. 83 ; Fromberg vs Halle, 1904, T.H. 54 ; R. vs Hardy, 25 N.L.R. 359 ; Clerk of Peace vs Davis, 29 N.L.R. 20, followed).

In case of such contempt, unless important facts are in dispute and the delay of a trial before a judge and jury will ·not interfere with the matter before the Court, as a general rule the Supreme Court will exercise its jurisdiction summarily.

A magistrate having given a decision against a litigant, the latter noted appeal and sent to the said Magistrate and to the Appeal Court an affidavit which contained merely a violent attack upon the magistrate as such, couched in most offensive terms, and imputing to him malice, partiality and dishonest perversion of
facts in connection with his decision.

Held, that such conduct constituted a contempt of the magistrate's Court which the Supreme Court should punish summarily.