€356.
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
4
19
Reference :-
mmimmimC.O. 885
No. 719. (GRENADA.)
LAW OFFICERS to COLONIAL OFFICE.
MY LORD,
We are honoured with your Lordship's commands, signified in Mr. Holland's
Temple, July 5, 1871. letter of the 22nd ultimo, stating that he was directed by your Lordship to transmit to us for consideration the enclosed copy of a Despatch from the Governor of the Windward Islands, dated 3rd May last, in which questions were raised for the decision of Her Majesty's Government as to the right of the Colonial Secretary and Provost Marshal of Grenada to receive certain fees for work done by those officers respectively in the Appeal and Encumbered Estates Courts.
That it would be seen from the Report of the local Attorney General (copy annexed) that, differing from the view taken by the Governor, he (the local Attorney General) considered that those officers were entitled to receive the fees by way of remuneration for work done in the courts.
That, with reference to the 4th question submitted by the Governor in his Despatch, he (Mr. Holland) was to inform us that your Lordship entertained doubts whether a local Legislature could lawfully pass a law enacting that fees received in Vice-Admiralty Courts should be paid into the Colonial Treasury, and that the question was submitted by the Lords Cominissioners of the Admiralty to Mr. Rothery, the Registrar of the High Court of Admiralty.
He had reported thus,-
"With regard to this question, I would observe that the tables of fees to be taken in the Vice-Admiralty Court in Grenada, as in the other Vice-Admiralty Courts, were originally established by an Order in Council made in pursuance of the Act 2 & 3 Will. 4. c. 51., and that on the repeal of that statute by the 26 Vict. c. 24., the Vice-Admiralty Courts Act, 1863, the power of repealing and altering the existing and all future rules and tables of fees was, by the 14th section of the latter Act, expressly reserved to Her Majesty in Council, and as the fees so established were to be received by the officers of the Vice-Admiralty Courts for their own use, I apprehend that they could not be diverted into the Colonial Treasury without the authority of an Act of the Imperial Legislature, or at least not without an Order of Her Majesty in Council."
And that he was to transmit to us copies of the Grenada Acts which were referred to in the papers, and of the Bill which it was proposed to submit to the local Legislature, and to request that we would favour your Lordship with our opinion as to what answers should be returned to the first and fourth questions submitted by the Governor; and, further, if it should be decided that the fees received by those officers for work in the Vice-Admiralty Court should be paid into the Colonial Treasury, whether that could be effected by an Order in Council, or whether an Imperial Act would be necessary.
In obedience to your Lordship's commands we have taken the above-mentioned questions, together with the enclosed papers, into consideration, and have the
honour to
Report
That, in reply to the first question, we are of opinion that the Colonial Secretary and Provost Marshal are not entitled to retain the fees referred to in that question. In reply to the fourth question we subscribe to the opinion of Mr. Rothery that the fees of the Vice-Admiralty Court cannot be diverted into the Colonial Treasury by an Act of the Colonial Legislature, and we think it, to say the least, safer that this should be done, if it be deemed expedient, by Act of the Imperial Legislature rather than by an Order in Council. The Bill submitted does appear to affect those fees.
We have, &c. (Signed)
The Right Hon. the Earl of Kimberley,
&c.
&c.
&c.
R. P. COLLIER. J. D. COLERIDGE.
• 16978.-405. 25.-5/86.
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