refused to pursue charges against parking offenders.

And the decision means higher courts could be swamped with minor traffic cases if the Attorney General decides to appeal the ruling.

In a packed Number One Court Magistrate Edward King claimed that he did not have the jurisdiction to deal with offenders because their parking tickets had been issued more than six months ago.

Mr. King made the same ruling last week, letting dozens of offenders off the hook after it was pointed out that because the tickets were more than six months old they were no longer valid.

But yesterday Crown counsel Mr. Larry Mussenden raised an objection to the ruling.

Before Mr. King could dismiss the first of some 50 offenders, Mr. Mussenden stood up and claimed the date that legal proceedings started on was well within six months of when the tickets were issued.

"I would like to draw your attention to the Traffic Offence Procedure Act,'' he told Mr. King. "If the parking notice is paid within seven days no prosecution procedure should be instigated.

"But after those seven days, there is a procedure in the Magistrates Court where prosecution may be initiated by the clerk inputting the data into a computer system.

"The date is generated by the computer system and this is the date when proceedings have begun.

"The crucial date is when it was fed into the computer link and if that's the case then we have a date for all these notices that's within six months.'' Mr. King said: "I am not persuaded. Take it to the Supreme Court.'' And when Mr. Mussenden pointed out that, if he made the same appeal to the Senior Magistrate, his ruling would be different, Mr. King said: "If someone does something and it is wrong that doesn't mean that I have to do it. Let the Court of Appeal or Supreme Court sort it out.'' As the legal wranglings grew more heated, Mr. Mussenden said: "We may well be seeing these people in another court then.'' When Mr. King then began dealing with the next offender, Mr. Mussenden tried to raise the same objection but was quickly shouted down.

"I object to that,'' Mr. King said. "I have already heard what you have had to say. I am not going to hear you another 365 times or 40 times or 50 times.

Will you please sit down.'' Parking fines row At that point, Senior Crown counsel Mr. Brian Calhoun stepped in, pointing out that the prosecution had a right to make any objections to the magistrate's ruling.

"The Crown has the right to indicate on the record that the argument is being taken because the Appeals Court will want that known,'' he said.

For the next 30 minutes Mr. King dismissed a string of parking offenders, each facing a $50 fine, saying: "I dismiss it for want of jurisdiction.'' On each occasion, Mr. Calhoun replied: "I ask the court to record the Crown's position as stated by Mr. Mussenden.'' At the end of the session Mr. Mussenden told The Royal Gazette that he did not know if all yesterday's offenders, along with a similar number dismissed by Mr. King last week, would be called to the Court of Appeal.

"That will depend on the Attorney General,'' he said. "But I am surprised that the magistrate was not persuaded by our argument. I thought we put forward a strong case.

"The reason for the delay in cases coming to court is the introduction of a new computer system.'' Last week a court administrator admitted that notices were only now being sent out to people who had not paid tickets issued at the end of last year.