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and justiciable as such, and to deal first with the
question whether Imperial Courts have jurisdiction over
foreigners in foreign ships who commit outside the three
mile zone offences made punishable as piracy by British
or Imperial Statutes.
In this connection the propositions of Cockburn
C.J. in Reg v. Keyn can be stated broadly as follows:
Up to the 16th century the jurisdiction of English criminal
courts was confined to crimes committed "within the body
of a county" while crimes at sea were subject to the
jurisdiction of the Admiral (pp. 162,167). Thus piracy 11 jure gentium" was never a felony at common law.
Subsequently,
in the reign of Richard II the respective jurisdictions
were allowed to overlap, to the extent that in murder and
mayhem done in great ships in the mouths of great rivers
the Admiral was accorded concurrent jurisdiction with the
common law (p.168). And so English criminal law remained
until 1878. Cockburn C.J. examined the statute 28 Henry
VIII C.15, and reached the conclusion (pp. 169 and 209)
that it created no new offence and did not render foreigners
liable to any English Court when they were not previously
so liable: the statute merely transferred the existing
jurisdiction of the Admiral to commissioners appointed by
the King, and the only jurisdiction over foreigners for
crimes committed on the high seas being derived from the
civil law the commissioners received no further or greater
jurisdiction under the statute of Henry VIII than the
Admiral possessed and no power to apply English criminal
law to foreigners in circumstances where the Admiral could
not apply it (p.169). And this position was not altered
by/