CO129-388 - Governor Sir Lugard - 1912 [1-2] — Page 160

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With reference to paragraph 4 of the Secretary of

12 5(2) of the Inter-

State's Despatch, 21st. December, relating to s. -pretation Ordinance I should be glad if the Secretary of State would reconsider the question. I introduced the section into the Ordinance very tentatively believing that it would commend itself to the Law Officers of the Crown as a principle which should govern the applica- -tion of Imperial legislation to the Colonies.

I think I am right in saying that the old doctrine that a statute comes into force on receiving the Royal assent is peculiar to England, and that all other, at least continental, States require publication. Be this as it may the old doctrine is quite un- -suited to the Colonies, and dates from a time when there were none with independent, or quasi-independent, Legislatures. The point in- -volved may be stated quite shortly. Suppose an Act of Parliament passed applicable to the Colonies, which creates an offence. If it is in force in the Colonies on the day it receives the Royal assent, the act in question becomes unlawful although no one had any notion that it had been made illegal, and if a prosecution were started the Courts might be asked to enforce a Statute and inflict punishment for an act committed at a time when they themselves had not even received { a copy of the statute. The question is of course of larger applica- -tion than to the Colony of Hongkong, and I submit that the time has come to put it upon a rational footing. Another case may be put. Suppose an Act creating a right were passed applying to the Colonies, and an agent were to cable out its provisions to a person in the Colony who acted upon the infor ation. An injunction might be applied for and be granted prohibiting his acting on the rights which Parlia- -ment had given him for the Courts would be in complete inorance of their existence until copies of the Act had arrived in the Colony.

I shall not be printing the Ordinance for some six weeks, there is time therefore for an answer to be received from the Secretary of State.

23rd. January, 1912.

(3d.) F. T. Piggott.