CO885-(1-2) — Page 420

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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

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OFFENCES committed on the high seas were originally cognizable only in courts constituted under an Admiralty Commission, which Courts proceeded according to the course (not of the law of England but) of the civil or Roman law.

In the 28th of Henry VIII, it was provided by Parliament that crimes committed on the sea should be tried according to the common course of the law in England, in case of similar offences committed on the land in England.

seas.

In the reign of William III a statute (11 and 12 Wm. III, cap. 7) authorized the trial in any British colony, according to the rules of the civil law, (under a Royal Commission to be issued for the purpose) of any crimes committed on the high

In the year 1806 another statute (46 Geo. III, cap. 54) enacted that all crimes committed on the high seas might be tried, according to the common course of the law of England, within any British colony in pursuance of a Royal Commission, to be issued under the Great Seal of Great Britain, to be directed to such persons (being at least four in number) as the Lord Chancellor should see fit to appoint.

Under this last Act commissions have been and are still, frequently addressed to Commissioners in the Of those Commissioners the principal colonies. Governor, the Admiral, or other naval officer on the station, the Chief Justice and various other persons, are members. Substantially, and in truth, the trial is always by the Chief Justice and a Jury.

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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

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The other Commissioners never interfere in the matter, although, as a mere ceremony, they occa- sionally take their places on the bench.

It is a matter of considerable expense to issue such a commission. In the smaller colonies it would be difficult to find persons of consideration enough to fill up the requisite number of Com- missioners. In point of fact, therefore, such courts do not exist in the smaller colonies.

Nevertheless it occasionally happens that pirates or persons who have committed crimes on board of British ships are brought in for trial to these smaller colonies. But not being amenable to any court there, it becomes necessary to send them with the witnesses to some adjacent colony, where there is a court of Commissioners for the trial of such cases, which again involves great expense, and sometimes leads to a total failure of justice,

It would be difficult to find any good reason why this cumbrous system should be maintained any longer. The result of a very costly proceeding to constitute these courts is, at length, nothing more or less than to remit the offenders to be tried before a judge and jury of the colony to which he may be brought. It is conceived, therefore, that it would produce no real innovation, and disturb no settled principle, if Parliament should enact that crimes committed on the high seas should be tried according to the course of the law of England, before the superior court of criminal justice of any British colony to which the offender might be conveyed for trial. There would then be no necessity for any such Commissioners.

The

Governor would cease to be a judge, and would discharge the appropriate function of the Executive Government in such matters. Criminals might be put on shore at the nearest accessible colonial port, and the difficulties either of multiplying such com- missions by the total number of our colonies, or of hazarding a failure of justice from the want of such commissions, would both be avoided.

At the present moment, a murder committed on board a fishing vessel on the banks of Newfound- land cannot be tried in any Court of Newfound- land. A murder committed in a boat at

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within sight of the city of Valetta could not be tried in Malta, but must be referred to Gibraltar for trial. And so of parallel cases in a great majority of the British colonies.

This proposal is no novelty in principle. Nearly twenty years ago, the statute 9 Geo. IV, cap. 83, sec. 4, authorized the supreme courts of New Southr Wales and Van Diemen's Land to try all crimes committed on the high seas without any special commission under the Great Seal for the purpose.

No inconvenience, real or imaginary, has ever followed. The convenience is, that in both of those colonies the expense and trouble have been avoided of issuing and renewing a series of com- missions which, if so issued and renewed, would have altered the mode of trial in no one single respect.

The proposed Act will therefore give the neces- sary jurisdiction to the ordinary criminal courts in all the British colonies. But in order to avoid the possible difficulty which might arise from a case of great importance arising for adjudication in one of the smaller possessions of the Crown, where there might not exist a court reasonably competent to - deal with it, a power is given to Governors of colonies, when they may think it expedient, to transfer persons charged with offences under this Act to other colonies, or to England.

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