TNAG-0908-FCO40-1118-Legislation-for-immigration-into-Hong-Kong-1979 — Page 11

354

J. C.

1948

HOUSE OF LORDS

(1043)

taken from the judgment of the Judicial Committee. Ou March 27, 1946, the Asya was sighted by a British destroyer, H.M.S. Chequers, on the high seas some 100 miles south-west objalla. She was flying no flag when first sighted but later OWNER OF hoisted the Turkish flag. Then the destroyer hailed her and

NAIM

JJOLVAN,

MOTOR

VESSEL

C

ASYA

V.

J

ATTORNEY- GENERAL

FOR

PALESTINE,

asked her destination by signal, to which she made no reply. A boarding party of eighteen persons was sent from the destroyer and when it arrived on the ship the Turkish flag was hauled down and the Zionist flag was hoisted. Four charts on the ship appeared to have on them a course with fixes from La Ciotet Bay, in France, to a port just north of Tel-Aviv. The boarding party brought the Asya under the escort of the destroyer to the outer harbour of Haifa. The Asya was a freighter with little accommodation for passengers but the hold had been fitted with tiers of bunks. There were seven hundred and thirty- three persons on board, none of whom had any passport or travel document or visa to enter Palestine. There was no

passenger list nor any usual ship's papers. On the arrival of the Asya at Haifa the police and immigration authorities boarded her on March 28, 1946, and put the passengers ashore and sent them to a clearance camp at Athlit, near Haifa, where the immigration officer signed a warrant of detention for them... On April 18, 1946, the respondent applied to the District Court of Haifa for an order confirming the forfeiture of the vessel to the Government of Palestine under s. 12 of the Immigration Ordinance, 1941, on the ground that on March 27, 1946, seven hundred and thirty-three persons were on board the vessel within the territorial waters of Palestine in circum- stances in which the master, owner or agent of the vessel was deemed to have abetted the unlawful immigration of those persons. On June 14, 1946, the learned trial judge in the District Court made an order confirming the forfeiture. From that order an appeal was preferred to the Supreme Court, and on November 11, 1946, that court, consisting of Fitzgerald C.J. Edwards and Shaw JJ., dismissed the appeal.

The relevant statutory provisions appear from the judgment. of the Judicial Committee.

I,

1948. Feb. 26, Har I 2 Sir Valentine Helmes L and Jacob S. Shapiro for the appellant This appeal raises questions as to the validity and construction of the legislation under which the forfeiture was ordered, and the sort of questions that arise really depend on the presumption that evergastainė (