Key legal question
Whether the refusal to proceed on the criminal complaint should be upheld because the reported facts constituted no criminal offence.
Extracted holding
Yes. The allegations did not disclose any criminal offence and were a civil dispute; a conviction could be excluded from the outset.
Extracted reasoning
A refusal to proceed on the merits is justified only when a conviction can be excluded immediately and with certainty. Here, the conduct complained of fell outside criminal law.