THE FOREIGN JURISDICTION ACT, 1890
53 AND 54 VICTORIA, CHAPTER 37
AN ACT TO CONSOLIDATE THE FOREIGN JURISDICTION ACTS
[4th AUGUST, 1890]
WHEREAS by treaty, capitulation grant, usage, sufferance, and other lawful means, Her Majesty the Queen has jurisdiction within divers. foreign countries, and it is expedient to consolidate the Acts relating to the exercise of Her Majesty's jurisdiction out of Her dominions:
Be it therefore enacted by the Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:
jurisdiction in
1.—It is and shall be lawful for Her Majesty the Queen to hold, Exercise of exercise, and enjoy any jurisdiction which Her Majesty now has or may foreign country. at any time hereafter have within a foreign country in the same and as ample a manner as if Her Majesty had acquired that jurisdiction by the cession or conquest of territory.
jurisdiction over
without regular
2.--Where a foreign country is not subject to any government from Exercise of whom Her Majesty the Queen might obtain jurisdiction in the manner British subjects recited by this Act, Her Majesty shall by virtue of this Act have jurisdic- in countries tion over Her Majesty's subjects for the time being resident in or resort- governments. ing to that country, and that jurisdiction shall be jurisdiction of Her Majesty in a foreign country within the meaning of the other provisions of this Act.
3.-Every act and thing done in pursuance of any jurisdiction of Her Validity of acts Majesty in a foreign country shall be as valid as if it had been done done in pursu according to the local law then in force in that country.
ance of jurisdic-
tion.
existence or
4.-(1.) If in any proceeding, civil or criminal, in a Court in Her Evidence as to Majesty's dominions or held under the authority of Her Majesty, any extent of juris- question arises as to the existence or extent of any jurisdiction of Her diction in foreign Majesty in a foreign country, a Secretary of State shall, on the application country. of the Court, send to the Court within a reasonable time his decision on the question, and his decision shall for the purposes of the proceeding be final.
(2.) The Court shall send to the Secretary of State, in a document under the seal of the Court, or signed by a Judge of the Court, questions framed so as properly to raise the question, and sufficient answers to those questions shall be returned by the Secretary of State to the Court, and those answers shall, on production thereof, be conclusive evidence of the matters therein contained.
enactments First Schedule.
5.—(1.) It shall be lawful for Her Majesty the Queen in Council, Power to extend if she thinks fit, by Order to direct that all or any of the enactment retenti described in the First Schedule to this Act, or any enactments for the time being in force amending or substituted for the same, shall extend, with or without any exceptions, adaptations, or modifications in the Order mentioned, to any foreign country in which for the time being Her Majesty has jurisdiction.
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