Lord Atkin:-

This is an appeal by special leave from an order of the Supreme Court of Trinidad and Tobago ordering the appellant to pay a fine of £25 or in default to be imprisoned for one month for contempt of Court, and further ordering him to pay the costs of the proceedings as between solicitor and client. The first question that arises is whether, as contended by the respondent, the Privy Council is incompetent to entertain an appeal from an order of a Court of Record inflicting a penalty for contempt of Court. The decisions on the point are conflicting. In Rainy v. Justices of Sierra Leone, (1852) 8 Moo PC 47, a Board consisting of Lord Cranworth, Knight Bruce L.J., Dr. Lushington and Sir Edward Ryan undoubtedly decided that no such appeal lay. Lord Cranworth, in giving the judgment of the Board, after pointing out that in this country every Court of Record is the sole and exclusive judge of what amounts to a contempt of Court proceeded:

We are of opinion that it is a Court of Record, and that the law must be considered the same there as in this country; and therefore that the orders made by the Court in the exercise of its discretion, imposing these fines for contempts, are co