Responsible government in the Dominions: Responsible government in the Dominions

Responsible government in the Dominions (Vol. 1)

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Multivolume work

Identifikator:: 1896933912

Document type:: Multivolume work

Author:: Keith, Arthur Berriedale http://d-nb.info/gnd/119086794

Title:: Responsible government in the Dominions

Place of publication:: Oxford

Publisher:: Clarendon Press

Year of publication:: 1912-

Collection:: Economics Books

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Volume

Identifikator:: 1896934455

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-236504

Document type:: Volume

Author:: Keith, Arthur Berriedale http://d-nb.info/gnd/119086794

Title:: Responsible government in the Dominions

Volume count:: Vol. 1

Place of publication:: Oxford

Publisher:: Clarendon Pr.

Year of publication:: 1912

Scope:: LI, 568 Seiten

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

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Document type:: Multivolume work

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Part II. The executive Government

Collection:: Economics Books

crap. 11] THE POWERS OF THE GOVERNOR 113 take further cognizance of them. It is to be observed that the sovereign authority conferred upon the East India Com- pany appears in Acts of Parliament, and therefore, without being pleaded, the courts would have judicial notice of it. Coming to the present plea, we find that, after stating that the defendant was Captain-General and Governor-in-Chief of the Island of Jamaica, the only averments in it are, that the acts complained of were done by him as governor of the island, and in the exercise of his reasonable discretion as such, and as acts of State. There is no attempt to show the occasion on which the seizure of the plaintiff's ship was made, nor the grounds on which that seizure, which is not in itself of the nature of an act of State, became and was such an act. The plea does not aver, even generally, that the seizure was an act which the defendant was empowered to do as Governor, nor even that it was an act of State. It would have been contended at the trial, if issue had been taken, that it would satisfy the averments of this plea to prove that the defendant assumed to make the seizure as Governor, and assumed to do it as an act of State, without showing that the act itself was an act of State, properly so called, and was within the limits of his authority. It was said that the plea should be construed as requiring, by implication, proof of these matters; but having regard to its nature and form as a plea of privilege, this cannot properly be held to be its meaning. Their Lordships cannot but think it was designedly pleaded in its present shape. It was a preliminary plea intended to raise the question whether the Governor, if acting de facto as such, and doing an act that he assumed and deemed to be an act of State, could be called on to show in the courts of the Colony that the seizure complained of was really an act of State, of the nature and class of those which, as governor acting on behalf of the Crown, he had authority to do. The object of the plea plainly was to stop the court from entering upon such an inquiry ; but upon the construction now sought to be given to it, this object would, from the first, have been frustrated, if issue had been taken, for the court must then have gone into the very inquiry which it was the manifest purpose of the plea to avert. It appears to their Lordships that the plaintiff could not have safely taken issue on it. He would have been met at the trial by the objection that it was a plea of privilege, pleaded as a preliminary plea to the jurisdiction, and neither was, nor was intended to be, an answer to the action. 1279

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