Odger's English Common Law

CONTEMPT OF COURT. 203
grave cases a warrant may be issued to bring him before the
Court under arrest. A motion to commit the offender is often
accompanied by a motion for an injunction to restrain him
from any further contemptuous acts of a similar kind.
Affidavits may be filed on both sides ; there is no jury ; the
Court offended itself hears the case and fixes the punishment,
inflicting either a fine or imprisonment for a time certain, or
both, to any extent in its discretion. The offender, however,
is often released after a short period of confinement, if he
apologises and so " purges his contempt."
A superior Court of Eecord has power thus to interfere
summarily and to fine the offender or commit him to prison in
all cases, in which an indictment for sedition would lie, and
in some others in which it would not. 1
It is in this case im-
material whether the contempt be committed in the presence
of the Court or at a time when the Court is not sitting and at
a distance from it. 2
An inferior Court of Record, however, can only commit an
offender to prison where the contempt was committed in open
Court. 3 The judge must at the moment be actually dis-
charging his duty ; and the words employed or act done must
either be pointedly and personally disrespectful to the judge
himself, or else amount to a serious obstruction of the course
of justice.
An inferior Court not of Eecord has at common law no
power to commit for contempt ; but in a few cases such a
power has been expressly conferred by statute. 4
It can, how-
ever, always eject any one whose conduct is such as to obstruct
the business of the Court, or order him to find sureties for his
But the High Court has jurisdiction to
good behaviour. 5
punish by attachment contempts of inferior Courts, especially
if the case will in the ordinary course come before the High
Court. 6
1 Per Lord Halt, C. J., in R. v. Rogers (1702), 7 Mod. at p. 29.
2 Crawford's Case (1849), 1 Q. B. 613.
s R. v. Lefroy (1873), L. R. 8 Q. B. 131 ; R v. Judge of the County Court of Surrey
(1884), 13 Q. B. D. 963.
4 See, for instance, 28 Vict. c. 36, s. 16.
5 McDermott v. Judges of British Guiana (1868), L. B. 2 P. C. 341.
« R. v. Parke, [1903] 2 K. B. 432 ; R. v. Davies, [1906] 1 K. B. 32.