Claim of Right and Dispute of Title

Abstract

In the first part of this article, published in April, the avowed intent was to demarcate and emphasise the difference between the two kindred but separate defences of claim of right and dispute of title. The subsequent publication of the eighth report of the Criminal Law Revision Committee on Theft has shown that the defence of claim of right is to be left untouched by the sweeping proposals contained in the report, and that consequently the subject of this article will not become a mere academic exercise, but will remain a matter of practical importance even if the recommendations are adopted.The earlier part of this article was primarily devoted to an attempt to isolate the meaning of title, the type of dispute that will lead to the exclusion of the jurisdiction of justices. It was noted that this procedural defence of dispute of title springs from a rule of statutory interpretation that it is always open to the legislature to exclude or modify. Passing reference has already been made to two famous modifications of the defence, in statutes providing for summary trial of assault and battery and malicious damage respectively. These enactments will now be examined in detail. Their special relevance for the object of this article is that the two cases on assault and battery show in the first place that, leaving aside the difficult question whether dispute of title should be extended to disputes as to title to personalty, even within the acknowledged prohibited sphere of disputes as to title to real property, criminal courts can be singularly slow to appreciate that a title to real property of an incorporeal kind is at stake.