It is contended, however, that, notwithstanding that the requirements of sub-reg. (2) were not observed, the award cannot be subject to prohibition because of reg. 17. The material part of that regulation provides that an award order or determination of a Local Reference Board shall not be challenged, appealed against, quashed or called into question or be subject to prohibition, mandamus or injunction in any court on any account whatever. The jurisdiction of this Court to issue a writ of prohibition is conferred by s. 75 (v.) of the Constitution. That paragraph says that in all matters in which a writ of prohibition is sought against an officer of the Commonwealth the High Court shall have original jurisdiction. The chairman and members of a Local Reference Board are in that capacity officers of the Commonwealth. It follows that in a case where a writ of prohibition is a proper remedy, it may be directed to them by this Court in virtue of the jurisdiction conferred by the Constitution. In so far as reg. 17 purports to deny the remedy where it properly lies, it is unconstitutional and void. But the question must always remain whether in a given case the writ does properly lie. That depends in turn upon the authority which the law gives to the proceedings which it is sought to prohibit. If the law denies to the tribunal in question all authority over the proceedings so that they cannot result in a lawful and effective exercise of power, then the proper remedy is prohibition. In form reg. 17 may appear to be an attempt to say that even where this is so there shall be no prohibition. But even in jurisdictions where there is no constitutional limitation upon legislative power similar enactments have not received so drastic an interpretation. They have been read rather as meaning that, where the tribunal has made a bona-fide attempt to exercise its authority in a matter relating to the subject with which the legislation deals and capable reasonably of being referred to the power possessed by the tribunal, the acts of the tribunal shall not be invalidated and accordingly shall not be the subject of prohibition. This has been explained in The Colonial Bank of Australasia v. Willan [1] ; Clancy v. Butchers' Shop Employés Union [2] ; Baxter v. New South Wales Clickers' Association [3] ; Morgan v. Rylands Bros. (Australia) Ltd. [4] ; and Waterside Workers' Federation of Australia v. Gilchrist, Watt & Sanderson Ltd. [5] . In R. v. Hickman; Ex parte Fox and Clinton [6] I have referred to these cases and stated my opinion as to the operation of the rule of construction in relation to reg. 17 reinforced as the rule is by the application of s. 75 (v.) of the Constitution. It is, of course, clear that in a matter which could not under the Constitution be placed by the legislature under the authority of the Board, reg. 17 could have no effect in protecting the Board's order or determination from prohibition. But where the Board has acted with reference to a subject matter over which the legislature might have conferred power and in a way which the legislature might have authorized had it so chosen the situation is different. It then becomes a question whether, upon the true interpretation of the legislative instrument as a whole, it does not sufficiently express an intention that what the Board does shall be considered an authorized exercise of its power and accordingly valid and effectual, notwithstanding that the Board has failed strictly to pursue the procedure the instrument indicates or prescribes and that the Board has in some respects gone outside or beyond the limits within which it was intended that the actual exercise of its authority should be confined.