Page:North Dakota Reports (vol. 2).pdf/219

 allegations, and his return showed the allegations to be true; but the record certified up in obedience to the writ showed the quoted words regularly entered in connection with the time of adjournment. The court, after a review of the authorities, say: “These decisions clearly indicate that in reviewing a judgment of a justice court upon a common law writ of certiorari, the record imports verity notwithstanding the statements of the justice to the contrary, even upon matters of jurisdiction. The cases also dispose of the question as to the place of calling the suit at the time to which it was adjourned. Upon such a writ it must be conclusively presumed that it was called at his office. To allow the return to have any effect as against the record and the presumptions arising from it would be to authorize issues of fact as to what did or did not occur.” To our minds the conclusion thus reached is unavoidable on principle. To permit the record to be impeached by the recollections of the justice is, in effect, contradicting the return by parol evidence; and there is such an avalanche of authority against that proceeding that no one would claim that it could be done. If the supplemental return was properly received in this case, then we are reduced to this position: When Justice Dance certified the record in obedience to the writ, had the petitioner sought to bring in Ex-Justice Kuhn, and show by his affidavit or his oral testimony in open court that the statements in the record were untrue, such a course would not have been tolerated fora moment. But Mr. Kuhn, a private citizen, is allowed to make an unsworn statement out of court, dignify it with the name of a “return,” and by the magic of that name the statement is powerful enough to scatter a record which the same matter, coming from the same party under the solemnity of an oath, would be powerless to touch. Further, the statute makes the transcript prima facie evidence of all the facts therein stated. The supplemental return contradicts the transcript. The transcript is entitled to as much weight as the unsworn statement of a private citizen. Suppose the truth of that statement be questioned, how is a court to reach a decision? No evidence can be introduced to fortify or defeat either the transcript or the statement. By what instrumentality is the court to solve the