Extract from Birmingham Post.
34
48
19/10/38.
QUESTION OF JURISDICTION OF
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HONG KONG COURT
JUDGMENT RESERVED ON A CABIN BOY'S] APPEAL
The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council yesterday continued the hearing of the appcal by Chung Chi Cheung, a cabin boy, who was convicted in Hong Kong in August, 1937, of having murdered Captain Douglas Lorne Campbell, commander of an armed Customs cruiser in the service of the Republic of China.
It was alleged at the trial in the Supreme Court of Hong Kong that when the cruiser, the Cheung Keng, was in the territorial waters of the colony on January 11 of last year, Chung Chi Cheung shot and killed the captain, seriously wounded the chief officer and finally shot and wounded himself.
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The appeal raised the question of the juris- diction of the Supreme Court of Hong Kong to try the accused. It was contended that the Cheung Keng, as an armed public vessel of a 'visiting State,' was immune from the juris- diction of the Courts of the colony of Hong Kong, into whose territorial water she had entered, and that such immunity extended to all persons on board her.
The Attorney-General (Sir Donald Somervell, K.C.), for the Crown, said that the question arose whether a foreign warship in territorial waters is to be regarded for all purposes as a floating piece of territory." That view, he submitted, is wrong.
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He argued that, as the crime was committed by a British subject against a British subject within the waters of the colony of Hong Kong, the Supreme Court of Hong Kong had juris- diction to try the accused on his being landed at Hong Kong in the circumstances of the case. The Chinese Government made no diplomatic representations with a view to having the appellant put back on board the vessel after his arrest in Hong Kong, and it was a reasonable and proper inference that the immunity enjoyed by members of a crew of an armed Chinese vessel had, in this case, been willingly waived and that, therefore, there was no bar to the exercise of its jurisdiction by the Hong Kong Supreme Court.
The hearing was concluded and their Lordships reserved judgment.