THIS DOCUment is THE PROPERTY OF HIS BRITANNIC MAJESTY'S GOVERNMENT
GENERAL.
32
F 6094/308/10]
No.
[July 29, 1932.]
[Treasury Solicitor.!
Case for the Law Officers of the Crown and Counsel.
THE following papers are sent :-
(1) Copy Judgment of the Full Court at Hong Kong, Rex v. Chung Tam
Kwong and others [see F 3628/308/10 (1932) ].
(2) Copy Despatches and Departmental correspondence [see F 3628/308/10
(1932)].
(3) Copy Memorandum by the 3rd Legal Adviser to the Foreign Office [see
F 3628/308/10 (1932) ].
Acts of
The opinion of the Law Officers is desired on certain questions arising out of Whether a decision of the Full Court at Hong Kong in the case of Rex v. Chung Tam Violence Kwong and others, who had been indicted for the crime of piracy, to the effect committed that actual robbery is necessary to support a conviction for piracy.
on the Iligh
are justici-
The facts are set out in the transcript of the Judgments of the Court which Seas by accompanies this Case, but the salient feature of the case was that the accused Foreigners had been arrested before they were able to perfect their manifest intention of able in His committing a robbery on the high seas, and it was doubted whether, in these Majesty's circumstances, the necessary elements of the crime of piracy existed.
Courts without
As the Law Officers will observe from the correspondence, of which a copy Proof of accompanies this Case, the decision of the Court at Hong Kong has given rise to actual somewhat serious problems, viz., whether there is, under existing legislation, any Robbery or power in the Courts of this country, and consequently in the Colonial Courts also, Board. to try foreigners committing on the high seas acts of violence which do not include actual robbery; if this question should be answered in the negative, the further problem then arises whether it would be competent for the Imperial Parliament to pass legislation conferring the necessary jurisdiction.
The questions raised by these two problems are discussed in the Judgments of the Court and in the correspondence and memorandum to which the Law Officers are respectfully referred. In these circumstances it is not thought that any useful purpose would be served by repeating here the arguments therein set forth. It may, however, be observed that the questions appear to turn to a large extent on whether the definition of piracy given by Sir C. Hedges in R. v. Dawson (13 State Trials) is, as the Court at Hong Kong appear to have assumed, to be taken as a comprehensive definition, in the sense that no act which does not fall within its terms can properly be regarded as amounting to the crime of piracy, or whether, as the Treasury Solicitor, in his minute of the 9th March, 1932, suggests, that definition was merely a definition for the purpose of the particular case under consideration, and is in no sense to be taken as exhaustive.(1)
A further question also arises whether the presumption that an English Act creating a criminal offence is intended to be limited to matters done within the territory of the United Kingdom, necessarily applies to Acts dealing with the offence of piracy.
The Law Officers will observe that it has been suggested that it may be desirable (should they take a certain view of the law) that there should be a special reference to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council under Section 3 of the Judicial Committee Act, 1834, for the purpose of eliciting their opinion on the matter. In this connection the Law Officers are referred to the remarks contained in the three concluding paragraphs of the Treasury Solicitor's minute of the 9th March, 1932.
(1) Hawkins Pleas of the Crown, Vol. I, Chapter 20. of Piracy: the wider definition in section 1 of this chapter seems to have been accepted in the judgments of Lawrence and Slesser LL. J. in the recent case of the China Navigation Company against the Attorney-General, but see the subsequent narrower descriptions of the crime in sections 3 and 14.
6552 [
[7653]
B
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