CO885-(13-15) — Page 177

20,020.

No. 193.

(JAMAICA.)

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :-

C.O.885

13 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH—NOT TO

3

LAW OFFICERS to COLONIAL OFFICE.

MY LORD,

Royal Courts of Justice, We were honoured with your Lordship's commands, signified in Mr. Meade's

October 9, 1890. letter of the 9th August last, stating that he was directed by your Lordship to lay before us the enclosed copy of a despatch from the Governor of Jamaica, covering a No. 192, 14th May copy of a Bill which had been passed by the Legislative Council of that Colony entitled

1890,

a Law to amend the Marriage Law, 1879, and the Marriage Law Offences Law, 1879, Law 22 of 1890.

with a report by the Acting Attorney-General on the Bill and certain correspondence and minutes relating to the subject-matter of the Bill.

That Mr. Meade was to enclose copies of the Colonial Laws mentioned in the title

of the Bill, and of a Law, No. 11 of 1880, amending the Marriage Law, 1879.

That the object of the Bill, as stated in the preamble, was to remove doubts whether, since the passing of the laws of 1879, Jews were entitled to contract marriages in Jamaica which before the passing of those laws were permissible according to the rules and customs of their religion; and that it appeared from the Governor's despatch and the papers enclosed in it that the marriages as to which doubts had arisen were marriages between persons within the prohibited degrees of consanguinity or affinity according to the table annexed to the Book of Common Prayer, but not within the prohibited degrees according to Jewish law,

That the Legislative Council in passing the Bill appeared to have assumed that such marriages were lawful in Jamaica before the passing of the laws of 1879, and to have relied on an opinion expressed by the Acting Attorney-General that the effect of its enactment would be to place persons of the Jewish religion in Jamaica in the same position as regarded inarriage as they held in England.

That Mr. Kirke in his report on the Bill expressed a doubt whether the law of England relating to the prohibited degrees of consanguinity and affinity was in force in Jamaica; that, as to that, Mr. Meade was to refer to the Colonial Act, 8 Vict. cap. 16. sec. 7, which declared that all such laws and statutes of England as were at any time before the passing of the Colonial Act, 1 Geo. 2. cap. 1. esteemed, introduced, used, accepted, or received as laws in Jamaica should be and continue laws of the island, except so far as the same had been, or might be, repealed or altered by any law of the island, and to the Jamaica Divorce Law, 1879 (Law 14 of 1879), sections 6 and 8, the latter of which authorises the pronouncing of decrees of nullity of marriage on the ground that the parties were within the prohibited degrees of consanguinity or affinity.

That there appeared to be no Colonial statute defining the prohibited degrees. That Jewish marriages within the prohibited degrees were considered by the two judges, whose reports were transmitted by the Governor, to be forbidden in England, and that on that point they differed from the Acting Attorney-General.

That your Lordship hoped that the documents transmitted with Mr. Meade's letter would be found sufficient to place the facts fully before us. request that we would take the papers into consideration and favour your Lordship That Mr. Meade was to with our opinion:

(1.) Whether the Governor might properly be authorised to assent to the Bill. (2.) Whether before the passing of the laws of 1879 marriages in Jamaica between Jews within the prohibited degrees of consanguinity or affinity defined in the table annexed to the Book of Common Prayer, but not prohibited by the laws and usages of the Jewish religion, were unlawful.

(3.) Whether since the passing of those laws such marriages had been unlawful. (4.) Whether such marriages in England were unlawful.

We have taken the papers into our consideration and, in obedience to your Lordship's commands, have the honour to

Report

That in our opinion the Governor cannot properly be authorised to assent to the Bill. In our opinion the marriages of Jews within the prohibited degrees are unlawful in England.

" 61207.-29. 25.-10.00.