B. MUNICIPAL RIGHTS. CHAPTER I. MARKETS. 121. Voet has very little to say that is applicable to municipal law at the present day—municipal matters being regulated by modern statutes, and regulations made by the governing authority of the State or the municipality under statutory powers. The Municipal Act of the Cape Colony (Act 45, 1882) is a typical statute of the kind, and the principal headings of the Act may be given here for the purpose of indicating what such statutes are supposed to contain: Application of the Act; Constitution of Municipalities; Municipal Council; Retirement and Vacancies in a Council; Electors and their Qualification; the Making of Voters' Rolls; Election of Councillors; Nomination of Candidates, Polling Places and Polling; Election and Privileges of the Mayor or Chairman; Auditing of Municipal Accounts; Proceedings of the Council; Contracts by and with the Council; Officers of the Municipality and their Duties; the Making and Scope of Bye-laws and Regulations; Property subject to Rates; Making of Valuations; Making of Rates; Recovery of Rates; Loans; Powers and Duties of the Council; Municipal Lands. 122. The subject of taxes, State and municipal, as well as the disposal of State property, have been treated of previously to some small extent (see §§ 74, and 84 to 95). The next matter dealt with is public markets. These have their origin either (a) from longcontinued custom, or (b) from special proclamation and granting of leave to establish the same. In former times, there was a privilege from arrest in the case of those attending public markets in good faith, which is now obsolete (50, 11 §§ 1 to 4). 123. A market which has been established by custom can no longer be used if there has been a period of prescription, amounting to thirty years, during which the people have neglected to make sales on the market; but if there has in the meanwhile arisen no occasion to make use of the market, the right to use it is never lost by prescription (50, 11 § 5). This is probably now obsolete, as marketplaces are now generally governed by express municipal regulations. 124. Another subject of municipal and State right about which there might be some question, is the land tax, known at Rome as census, and similar taxation in modern times. It was a tax imposed in respect of citizenship and of ownership of land. Those who had not the use of their land, through earthquake or flood, or other destruction, were relieved from the burden of the tax (50, 15 §§ 1, 2). |