Taylor J:

This is an application for review of certain proceedings of the Rent Conciliation Board under s. 13 of the Control of Rent Ordinance, 1953, which creates a statutory remedy in the nature of certiorari.

The subject matter is Nunes Building, a large office block in the centre of the city, of which the various floors and rooms are let to a number of business firms.The landlord served on each tenant a notice of application to raise the rent and the Board set them all down for hearing at one time, so as to deal with the building as a whole.This was proper.The applications were all in the same form and merely applied to raise the rent from the present rent to a new figure, without any particulars.At the commencement of the consolidated hearing, Counsel for the landlord applied to amend the amounts claimed in some of the applications; in at least one case the amendment asked for a smaller increase than the application as originally drawn; the amendments were allowed, without objection.This led to a misunderstanding; Counsel for the tenants say that they merely accepted the amendments, as such, but the Board took it that they assented to the proposition that the new rents asked for were within the limits allowed by the Ordinance of 1953 which had recently come into operation.

The standard rents of the various lettings were not stated.Counsel for the landlord said that the present trustees did not know what the rents were in 1939 and therefore could not prove the standard rents.The Board should have rejected this submission.It was not suggested that the previous trustees had ever been asked whether their records survived.There are many other sources from which the information could probably have been obtained.

Several witnesses were called.They produced plans and measurements of the building in question and of similar buildings in the vicinity and proved the current rents of these, some of which had been fixed by the Board by consent orders; they also gave evidence of the costs of some repairs.

The Board then fixed the rents at figures very slightly less than the amounts applied for by the landlord.

In their grounds of decision the Board "found as a fact that the current rents were at a level which justified increase to a just and proper level." They based this conclusion mainly on the rents which they (or their predecessors) had fixed for a similar building in the same locality.They had regard to recent substantial repairs and to the facts that the landlord paid the assessment and other outgoings.

In fixing the rents the Board had in mind the limits imposed on them by the new Ordinance; they understood from Counsel for the landlord that the increases asked for would not exceed the maximum allowed.

This is an allusion to a previous decision of the Board (1), which is reported in [1953] MLJ at p. 146, where the then President expressed his view of the effect of the new Ordinance.The main purpose of this motion is to ascertain the true construction of the sections which define the powers of the Board.

Where, as here, the question is one of the construction of an amending statute it is important to examine first the previous law and then to compare it with the new law so as to appreciate the effect of changes.Under the Ordinance of 1947:

Premises" included anything built before that Ordinance.

Standard Rent" meant:

Rent axed by the Board before "this Ordinance," or (if not so fixed);

The pre-war rent, or (failing that);

The first rent.

A landlord was empowered, by s. 7, to raise the rent, without leave of the Board, in two cases, viz.:

(a) where the current rent was below the standard rent, and

(c) where the premises were let before 2 January 1941 and there had been no increase since then, by amounts from 5% to 25%, according to the type of premises as set out in the Schedule,

Provided that in such a case the Board could fix the amount of the increase and the landlord could not then increase the rent by more than the amo