82,891
edits
AP Picture Houses v Wednesbury: Difference between revisions
no edit summary
Amwelladmin (talk | contribs) No edit summary |
Amwelladmin (talk | contribs) No edit summary |
||
| Line 1: | Line 1: | ||
A famous exigesis on the meaning, in law, of the word | A famous exigesis on the meaning, in law, of the word “[[reasonable]]”. It seems quaint now, but the action concerned whether a local authority could be said to be acting reasonably in prohibiting children under the age 15 to attend cinemas on Sunday. | ||
Lord Greene MR had this to say: | In 1947, the Wednesbury Corporation in Staffordshire granted Associated Provincial Picture Houses a licence to operate a cinema. One of the conditions was that no children under 15, whether or not accompanied by an adult, could be admitted on Sundays. | ||
This seems arbitrary nowadays but the 1909 [[Cinematograph Act 1909]] allowed cinemas to operate between Mondays and Saturdays but ''not at all'' on Sundays. Only the local neighbourhood commanding officer of military forces (this we must assume would have been a gentleman like Captain Mainwaring) could apply to the licensing authority to open a cinema on Sunday. | |||
This was 1909. But 1932, the world of cinematic entertainment had undergone profound change, and in that year — some 15 years before the material facts in the case — the ''Sunday Entertainments Act 1932'' permitted local authorities to licence Sunday opening for cinemas “subject to such conditions as the authority may think fit to impose”. | |||
Associated Provincial Picture Houses sought a declaration that Wednesbury’s condition was unacceptable and outside the power of the Corporation to impose. | |||
In deciding that it did, Lord Greene MR had this to say: | |||
{{box| | {{box| | ||