AT THE COURT AT BUCKINGHAM PALACE,
The 10th day of November, 1933.
Present,
THE KING'S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY IN COUNCIL.
WHEREAS it is provided by Section 4 of the Judicial Committee Act, 1833, that it shall be lawful for His Majesty to refer to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council for hearing or for con- sideration any such matters whatsoever as His Majesty shall think fit:
AND WHEREAS there was this day read at the Board a letter from the Right Honourable Sir Philip Cunliffe-Lister, one of His Majesty's Principal Secretaries of State, stating that at the Criminal Sessions held in Hong Kong in February, 1931, twelve subjects of the Republic of China were indicted for the crime of piracy, to wit, that they on the 4th day of January, 1931, on the High Seas with force and arms assaulted and put in fear of their lives certain mariners in cargo junk No. 206. V. with intent to carry away the said junk, her tackle and cargo from the owners thereof and to steal the same and that after the verdict of guilty of the jury the following question of law was reserved by the trial judge viz.: Whether an accused person may be convicted of piracy (mean- ing thereby of piracy jure gentium) in circumstances where no robbery has occurred , a question which by the judgment of the Full Court of Hong Kong delivered on the 1st April, 1931, was determined in the negative with the result that the said conviction. was quashed and the prisoners were discharged; that no appeal lies from the above judgment of the Full Court which is and remains binding upon all the Courts of Hong Kong; that the question of law involved in this judgment is one of far-reaching importance and that it is conceived that others of His Majesty's Criminal Courts in the Far East will regard the said judgment as one which, though not binding on them, they ought to follow; that the efficacy of the protection afforded by His Majesty's Naval Forces against piracy on the High Seas in the Far East may, if the law has been rightly declared in the said judgment, be seriously affected, and that in these circumstances the said Secretary of State humbly submitted that the matter was a proper one to be referred to the Judicial Committee of His Majesty's Privy Council under the Statute aforesaid and prayed that His Majesty might be pleased to direct accordingly:
D.C. 5765 (1) 2,1,49
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