CO129-534-9 Law of Piracy- case of Rex v. Chung Tam Kwong 1-4-1931 - 20-4-1932 — Page 25

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Courts to deal with every kind of offence which falls within

the international law definition of piracy.

"

I think that it was agreed that the first step was

to submit a Case to the Law Officers of the Crown, and I

propose therefore to suggest to the Treasury that it is expedient that the Law Officers should be asked to advise (intu alia)

first, whether the Hong Kong Court was right in its view of the

definition of piracy under English municipal law, and secondly.

whether on the proper construction of the section to which I

referred in my earlier letter the Court would have had

jurisdiction over a foreigner who committed the act which was

alleged to have been committed in that case on the open sea.

If they answer both questions in the affirmative, I suggest that

no occasion for submitting a special reference to the Privy

Council will really arise. Even if they should answer the first

question in the negative it still seems to me that provided

they answer the second question in the affirmative there will

be no real difficulty; I can hardly think that it would be

necessary to refer to the Privy Council a question whether a

particular Act does or does not extend to the prevention of a

particular crime.

If, however, they answer both questions in the

negative, it seems to me that we shall have to consider the

P.T.0.