4
Enough has been said to place it beyond dispute that there have been vested in the Court powers, functions, and authorities of an administrative, arbitral, and executive character as alleged in the application for a writ of prohibition.
Next it must be asked whether judicial power also has been vested in it. It is clear that that is a purpose of the Act. For otherwise it would not be called a Court or a superior Court of Record or make such provision for the appointment of Judges as has already been mentioned. But if this is not enough, it is necessary only to look at sections 29 and 29A of the Act. Under section 29 the Court is empowered (a) to impose penalties as therein mentioned for a breach or non-observance of an order or award proved to the satisfaction of the Court to have been committed, (b) to order compliance with an order or award proved to the satisfaction of. the Court to have been broken or not observed, (c) by order to enjoin an organisation or person from committing or continuing a contravention of the Act or a breach or non-observance of an order or award, (d) to give an interpretation of an order or award, together with divers other powers. And by 29A it is provided (1) that the Court has the same power to punish contempts of its power and authority whether in its relation to its judicial powers or otherwise as is possessed by the High Court in respect of contempts of the High Court, (2) that the jurisdiction of the Court to punish a contempt of the Court committed in the face or hearing of the Court when constituted by a single Judge may be exercised by that Judge and that in any other case the jurisdiction of the Court to punish a contempt of the Court shall (without prejudice as therein mentioned) be exercised by not less than three Judges, (3) that the Court has power to punish as a contempt of the Court an act or omission although a penalty is provided in respect of that act or omission under some other provision of the Act, (4) that the maximum penalty which the Court is empowered to impose in respect of a contempt of the Court consisting of a failure to comply with an order of the Court made under section 29 (1) (b) or (c) is (a) where the contempt is by (i) an organisation not consisting of a single employer five hundred pounds, or (ii) an employer or the holder of an office in an organisation as therein mentioned two hundred pounds or imprisonment for twelve months, or (b) in any other case fifty pounds.
No other section of the Act need be mentioned. It has become clear that just as administrative, arbitral and executive powers, functions and authorities are vested in the Court so also is judicial power vested in it even to the extent of fining a citizen or depriving him of his liberty.
At this stage their Lordships would refer to a significant passage in the majority judgment of the High Court. It is at page 62 of the Record and is as follows: "There is, of course, a wide difference—and probably it is more than one of degree—between a denial on the one hand of the possibility of attaching judicial powers accompanied by the curial and judicial character to a body whose principal purpose is non-judicial in order that it may better accomplish or effect that non-judicial purpose and, on the other hand, a denial of the possibility of adding to the judicial powers of a Court set up as part of the national Judicature some non-judicial powers that are not ancillary but are directed to a non-judicial purpose. But, if the latter be done, clearly the former must be then completely out of the question." Their Lordships by no means dissent from this statement, but they make use of it in order to emphasise that the substance of the matter must be regarded and that in the matter under consideration the primary and essential object of the Act was the settlement of industrial disputes, that this object can be fulfilled only by the intermediacy of a body of persons established for that purpose, that the functions of a body so established are not judicial, that to call it a Court or a Superior Court of Record does not convert its non-judicial functions into judicial functions and that to add judicial functions or powers to them means only that a body created to exercise non-judicial functions has now vested in it judicial functions also. Before turning to a consideration of the vital question in this case it is desirable to repeat
