The Gazette 1986

GAZETTE

JULY/AUGUST 1986

a dramatic change. As well as becoming cold and distant to her, he accused her of having an affair with the best man at their wedding and of drugging his food. Mr. R. threatened to leave Mrs. R. and in fact did so in January 1982. It was only in February that he informed Mrs. R. of some of his medical history and subsequently they both went to see his psychiatrist who told Mrs. R. that her husband was a very sick man, would have to be immediately hospitalised and that he was a schizophrenic. Mr. R. was kept in hospital, on and off, until June, during which time his attitude towards Mrs. R. became more and more distant, and he eventually told her he did not want her to visit him anymore nor did he want to return to their home. On his discharge from hospital, he removed all his belongings from the family home. When Mrs. R. visited him at his new residence he told her to get out. When she phoned him in July to tell him of her mother's death he banged,the 'phone down. Three phychiatrists gave medical evidence on Mrs. R's behalf, diagnosing Mr. R. as a paranoid schizophrenic, which fully explained the unfounded allegations he made against Mrs. R. and his unjusti- fiable rejection of her. These doctors were of the opinion that Mr. R. was not capable of entering into a stable marraige relation- ship with his wife. Mr. R's own psychia- trist, who had treated him since 1976, gave evidence of his medical history, establish- ing that he had continued to be treated up to 1981, when shortly before his marriage, he discontinued his injections on his own initiative. His Doctor had not been aware that Mr. R. intended to get married and his opinion was that he should not have done so. Like the other psychiatrists, he was of the opinion that Mr. R's illness disabled him from carrying on a stable normal marriage relationship with his wife. Having repeated the conclusion he had reached in the case of D. -v- C. [19841 ILRM 173 (based on observations of Kenny J. in S. -v- S. (unreported, 1 July 1976), of Barrington J. in R.S.J, -v- J.S.J. [1982] ILRM 263; of Hamilton J. in M (otherwise O) -v- O (unreported, 24 January 1984) and Barrington J. in W. -v- P. (unreported, 7 June 1984), that the High Court has jurisdiction to declare null and void a marriage when one of the spouses at its date was, through psychiatric disability, unable to enter into and sustain the normal inter-personal relationships which marriage requires, Costello J. HELD: that as a result of the psychiatric illness from which Mr. R. was suffering at the date of his marriage he was incapable of entering into and of sustaining a normal marriage relationship with Mrs. R., who was therefore entitled to a declaration that her marriage was null and void. Note: The Judge stated that it did not follow from the decision he reached on these particular facts that every paranoid schizophrenic was, as a matter of law, incapable of entering into a valid marriage. R. -v- R. — High Court (per Costello J.), 21 December 1984 — unreported. Sarah Cox

TAX An artificial process for ripening bananas does not constitute a "Manufacturing" Process for Corporation Tax relief. The Appellants were engaged in a process for artifically ripening bananas transported to Ireland in a green unripened state. The ripening process takes between four and nine days and sometimes longer and is carried out in specially constructed and equipped ripening rooms. The process requires special expertise but not profes- sional qualifications and has two stages. The initial stage is to bring the fruit to uniform temperature. This stage requires careful monitoring of temperature and humidity. At a certain point, determined under the control of a skilled manager, the temperature must be reduced and the fruit enters its second stage. Gas is introduced into the chamber, and again, careful control is required. The gas penetrates the cells of the fruit and causes the ripening process to set in earlier than it would normally do. Constant testing is necessary to ensure the ripening process results in a marketable product. If bananas were allowed to ripen naturally off the plant the quality would be variable and the process too haphazard for orderly marketing so that economic losses would be enormous. Section 54(1) of the Corporation Tax Act 1976 (referred to as " t he Ac t ") provides: " In this Part " g o o d s" means goods manufactured within the State by the person who exports them or some of them and who in the relevant accoun- ting period is the company claiming relief under this P a r t ". There is no definition of the word "ma n u f a c t u r e" contained in the Act. At the Circuit Court hearing, it was held that the bananas in question were processed in this Country but that, they could not be regarded as having been manufactured here. This decision was upheld in a case stated to the High Court and the Company then appealed to the Supreme Court raising for consideration the true construction of Section 54 of the Act. The Supreme Court referred to three basic rules of statutory interpretation previously ap'plied by the Court in Inspector of Taxes -v- Kiernan (1981J I.R. 117 as follows: 1. If the statutory provision is one directed at the public at large (rather than to a particular class) then, in the absence of internal evidence suggesting the contrary, the word or expression should be given its ordinary or collo- quial meaning. 2. If a word or expression is used in a Statute creating a penal or taxation liability, and there is looseness or ambiguity attaching to it, the word should be construed strictly so as to prevent a fresh imposition of liability from being created unfairly by the use of oblique or slack language. 3. When the word which requires to be given its natural and ordinary meaning is a simple word which has a wide-

spread and unambiguous currency the Judge construing it should draw primarily on his own experience of its use. Applying the first and third rules, it was considered that the Statute was one directed to the public generally (as opposed to particular classes covered by specialised legislation such as Solicitors, Opticians, Dentists, etc.). The word "ma n u f a c t u r e d" might be taken at first sight to be a simple word having widespread and unambiguous currency; closer examination, however, reveals the use of the word in many differing ways; in some instances the word implies virtual creation, in others alteration of appearance rather than make-up, of shape rather than substance. The second rule would apply in so far as there was ambiguity or doubt as to the meaning of the word. The Supreme Court cited with approval the approach of Murphy J. in construing somewhat similar legislation in the case of M. Cronin (Inspector of Taxes) -v- Strand Dairy Limited when he expressed the view: "It seems to me, therefore, that one must look at the goods alleged to have been manufactured and consider what they are, how they appear, what qualities they possess, what value attaches to them. One then looks at the process and seeks to identify to what extent that process conferred on the goods the characteristics which they are found to possess . . . the question is to a large extent one of degree." The question to be put is not whether the ordinary person would describe the bananas which have been subjected to the ripening process as "manufactured goods" but rather whether the ordinary person on being adequately informed as to the fore- going matters would attribute the word "ma n u f a c t u r e" to the ripening process. In aid of construction of the particular word as used in the Statute however one must look to the scheme and purpose as disclosed by the Statute or the relevant part thereof. The scheme and purpose of part IV of the Act was, by tax incentives, to encourage the creation of employment within the State and the promotion of exports. The operation described in the case stated clearly came within both categories. HELD: It is a matter of degree itself a question of law, as to whether or not what the company has done to the raw material makes it goods within the definition in Section 54. The ripened bananas, having been subjected to the process as described, constitute a commercially different product and one within the definition. The appeal was accordingly allowed. Charles McCann Limited -v- S. O'Cualachain (Inspector of Taxes) — Supreme Court (per McCarthy J. nem. diss.), 30 June 1986 — unreported. Desmond Rooney

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