CO129-455 - Acting Governor Claud Severn - 1919 [7-9] — Page 41

Form: A.

you are at liberty if you think fit to refer any case of proposed revocation for

such an enquiry, and that in certain specified cases you have no alternative to

giving the holder of the certificate which it is proposed to revoke the option of

claiming such an enquiry.

4. As to the procedure to be followed in any proposed case of revocation,

I have decided, after consultation with the Secretary of State for Home Affairs,

that the Governor of any Colony shall, before making and submitting for approval

any Order of revocation, or before referring any case to a Committee or a Superior

Court for enquiry, report all the circumstances of the case fully to me. If after

considering this report I am satisfied that the case is an appropriate one for

revocation or for enquiry with a view to revocation, I will inform you accordingly,

and it will then be your duty to order an enquiry to be held if that is necessary

or considered desirable

me, and if after such enquiry revocation is decided

upon, or if no enquiry is held, then, forthwith, you should forward a printed

Order of revocation in the Form A. (enclosure to this despatch) unsigned and

undated for my formal approval.

5. If I approve the Order I will sign it and return it to you, and it

will then be for you to fill in the date from which it is to take effect and to sign

and date it. The original Order, as soon as it is completed, will be registered

in the Colony in the book in which certificates of Imperial naturalization are

registered, and a copy should be forwarded to me for transmission to the Home

Office for record in that Department.

6. For the purposes of an enquiry under section 7 (4) you will presumably

appoint the Chief Justice or some other Judge of the Supreme Court to preside

over any Committee which you may constitute for such a purpose.

In some

cases it may be expedient that one member of the Committee should be a person

having no official connection with the Government,

7. With regard to section 7 (5) I have to point out that the general

intention is that a certificate shall be revoked in that part of His Majesty's

dominions in which the holder is resident at the time of revocation, so that it

will not be possible (except in the case mentioned in paragraph nine) to take steps

in a Colony to revoke a certificate which has been granted in that Colony, if the

In person to whom the certificate relates is not still resident in the Colony.

such a case, if steps for revocation are taken in the part of His Majesty's dominions

in which the holder is resident, the revocation will be subject to the concurrence

of the Government of the Colony in which the certificate was granted, and I shall

be prepared to invite such concurrence.

8. In the converse case where it is considered necessary or desirable by

the Governor of a Colony to revoke a certificate which was granted elsewhere in

His Majesty's dominions but the holder of which is resident in the Colony, if I

am prepared to approve an Order of revocation I shall before formally approving

it take steps to obtain the concurrence of the Government of that part of His

Majesty's dominions in which the certificate was granted.

9.

In a case where the holder of a certificate granted in a Colony is no

longer resident in any part of His Majesty's dominions, but his certificate has

become revocable on any ground specified in section 7, it will be open to you to

take the steps laid down in paragraph four with a view to the revocation of

the certificate.

10. With regard to section 7 (6), as soon as any Order of revocation has

been completed you should take steps to secure the surrender and cancellation

of the revoked certificate.

11. Coming to section 7A, I have to inform you that it is considered that

section 8 (1) of the Principal Act, under which the powers of the Secretary of

State with regard to the grant and revocation of certificates are delegated to the

Government of any British Possession, extends to vesting in the Governor of the

Colony the power of making an Order under section 7s as to the nationality of

the wife and minor children of a person whose certificate has been revoked in

the Colony.

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