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the occupant of enemy territory from declaring
Com
A
extinguished, suspended or unenforcible in a court of
law the rights and rights of action of the inhabitants, but this does not apparently mean that he is
prohibitea from suspending judges from their functions,
whatever else it may mean, for its precise inter-
pretation is a matter of dispute, see Oppenheim Vol.2 pages 250 and 348.
6.
Article 14 of the Hong Kong Constitution
provides that the judges held office during pleasure
There does.. I do not think
unless otherwise provided by law.
to b... there is any doubt that the Chief Justice continued
to hold office, notwithstanding his internment, but
the question is whether the exercise of his
jurisdiction during internment could, having regard
to the rule stated above, be held to be valid. It
Deems to be think it is an essential condition, in principle, of
any administration of justice that it should be free
from any sort of constraint, and that the court should
be in a position to give effect to its decisions.
It is perhaps arguable that a judgment which is in
effect merely declaratory, such as a decree of divorce,
is of such a nature that the question of means of
execution is irrelevant. But one can imagine
circumstances in which the apparatus of a court of
justice would be necessary even to make such
jurisdiction effective; for example, it could hardly be argued that the Chief Justice had any power, or,
to exencise it, if he had power, was hardly in a position to commit
for contempt. The short point, surely, is that the
King's Writ did not, and could not, run in this area during the occupation. Going back to the most
fundamental conceptions of the common law, it was
outside the effective protection of the Crown and not
under the King's peace. Although the Crown retained
a sufficient residue of sovereignty to oblige British
subjects/
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