"J. Dunsmuir got his brother-in-law Bryden to start the action. He secretly wanted the court to strike down the legislation that excludes chinamen from working in the mines because it was ultra vires." What is ULTRA VIRES??? TX, Ruth

On Sat, 22 May 2010, Ruth Sprowls wrote: > Date: Sat, 22 May 2010 12:32:19 -0400 > From: Ruth Sprowls <ruthsprowls@windstream.net> > To: Bill Davidson <william.davidson@rogers.com> > Cc: ayrshire@rootsweb.com > Subject: Re: [AYR] Mining on Vancouver Island > > "J. Dunsmuir got his brother-in-law Bryden to start the action. He > secretly wanted the court to strike down the legislation that excludes > chinamen from working in the mines because it was ultra vires." > > What is ULTRA VIRES??? > TX, > Ruth > Hello. Ultra vires means to act beyond one's legal authority - acting "beyond power" or outside one's power. By context, here, the legislation was sought to be ruled invalid by the court, on the basis that the legislature was acting beyond its authority, in enacting the legislation. As an analogy, under the Australian Constitution, the Australian federal parliament has the authority to enact legislation specific to any race; to implement racial segregation, such as apartheid. A specific section of the Australian Constitution, confers that authority on the Ausralian federal parliament. The particular legislature, to which the above query applies, might not have had such a provision, thus allowing the argument to be made, that enacting such legislation, was ultra vires. Note: This is important - the above response from me, is from my understanding, having studied a little law, however, I am NOT an accredited legal practitioner, and, similarly, my understanding is that any person who provides legal advice, without being a formally accredited legal practitioner, is likely to be commiting an offence against the law, as opposed to being a lay person advising of an interpretation that is solely based on the person's understanding, and making clear that the interpretation is from a lay person, based solely on the person's understanding, and making clear that the interpretation is not from an accredited legal practitioner. -- Bret Busby Armadale West Australia .............. "So once you do know what the question actually is, you'll know what the answer means." - Deep Thought, Chapter 28 of Book 1 of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: A Trilogy In Four Parts", written by Douglas Adams, published by Pan Books, 1992 ....................................................