ADMIRALTY JURISDICTION. The courts by which, as far as we know, admiralty jurisdiction in civil matters was first exercised were the following. In and throughout England the courts of the several admirals soon combined into one High Court of Admiralty (see ADMIRALTY, HIGH COURT OF). Within the territories of the Cinque Ports the Court of Admiralty of the Cinque Ports exercised a co-ordinate jurisdiction. In certain towns and places there were local courts of vice-admiralty. In Scotland there existed the Scottish High Court of Admiralty, in Ireland the Irish High Court of Admiralty. Of these courts that of the Cinque Ports alone remains untouched. The Scottish Court was abolished, and its civil jurisdiction given to the Court, of Session and to the courts of the sheriffs by the Court of Ses sion Act, 1830—not, however, till a decision given by it and the appeal therefrom to the House of Lords had established a re markable rule of admiralty law in cases of collision (Hay v. le Neve, 1824, 2 Shaw, Sc. App. Cas. 395). The act states that the Court of Justiciary held cumulative jurisdiction with the Court of Admiralty in criminal matters. The local vice-admiralty courts in England had ceased to do much work when they were abolished by the Municipal Corporations Act, 1835. The High Court became, with the other superior courts, a component part of the High Court of Justice by virtue of the Judicature Acts, 1873 and 1875. And the Irish Court in like manner became a part of the High Court of Justice in Ireland by virtue of the Judicature Act passed in 1877.
As England first, and Great Britain afterwards, acquired colonies and possessions beyond seas, vice admiralty courts were established. The earliest known was that in Jamaica, established in the year 1662. Some vice-admiralty courts created for prize purposes in the eighteenth century were suffered to expire after 1815. In the year 1863, when the act regulating the vice-admiralty courts was passed, there were vice-admiralty courts established in 45 several portions of the King's dominions; to which by an act of 1867 one for the Straits Settlements was added. These courts have been regulated from time to time by the following statutes: 2 and 3 Will. IV. c. 51, 26 and 27 Vict. c. 24 (Vice-Admiralty Courts Act, 1863), already cited, and 3o and 31 Vict. c. 45 (Vice-Admiralty Courts Act Amendment Act, 1867) ; and by the slave trade acts, of which the last and consolidating act was that of 1873.
In 1890 the Colonial Courts of Admiralty Act provided that, except in the colonies of New South Wales, Victoria, St. Helena and British Honduras, vice-admiralty courts should be abolished and colonial courts of admiralty substituted. There is power, however, reserved to the Crown to erect through the admiralty in any British possession any vice-admiralty court, except in India or any British possession having a representative legislature. No vice-admiralty court so established can exercise any jurisdiction except for some purpose relating to prize, the royal navy, the slave trade, foreign enlistment, Pacific.Islanders' protection, and questions relating to treaties or conventions on international law.
By the Colonial Courts of Admiralty Act, 1890, already referred to, every court of law in a British possession which is declared by its legislature to be such, or if there be no such declaration, which has original unlimited civil jurisdiction, shall be a court of admiralty.
There used to be vice-admiralty courts for Calcutta, Madras and Bombay; but by the India High Courts Act, 1861, s. 9, the ad miralty jurisdiction was given to the High Courts of these places.
Admiralty jurisdiction was given to the consular courts in China, Japan and Turkey (those in Japan and Turkey have disappeared with the capitulations), and by s. 12 of the Colonial Admiralty Courts Act any court established by H.M. for the exercise of jurisdiction in any place outside H.M.'s dominion may have admiralty jurisdiction granted to it.
By the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act, 1900, a federal supreme court, to be called the High Court of Australia, is created, and the parliament of the Commonwealth may make laws conferring original jurisdiction on the High Court in matters of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction.
There is a court of admiralty in the Isle of Man of which the water-bailiff is judge. He is also styled admiral. It is said to have jurisdiction in salvage and over other maritime matters occurring within three leagues from the shore.
Modern statutes have given ad miralty jurisdiction to the City of London Court, Court of Pas sage and to county courts in the following matters : Salvage, where the value of the salved property does not exceed ii,000, or the claim for reward 1300 ; towage, necessaries and wages, where the claim does not exceed 1150; claims for damage to cargo, or by collision, up to 1300 (and for sums above these prescribed limits by agreement between the parties) ; and claims arising out of breaches of charter parties and other contracts for carriage of goods in foreign ships, or torts in respect thereof, up to £300. This jurisdiction is restricted to subjects over which jurisdiction was possessed by the High Court of Admiralty at the time when the first of these acts was passed, except as regards the last branch of it (the Aline, 188o, 5 Ex. Div. 227; R. v. Judge of City of London Court [1892] 1 Q.B. 272). In analogy with the county court admiralty jurisdiction created in England, a limited ad miralty jurisdiction was given in Ireland to the recorders of certain boroughs and the chairmen of certain quarter sessions; in salvage cases, where a county court in England would have jurisdiction, magistrates, recorders and chairmen of quarter ses sions may have jurisdiction as official arbitrators (Merchant Ship ping Act, 1894, 5. 547). In Scotland, admiralty suits in cases not exceeding the value of 125 are exclusively tried in the sheriff's court; while over that limit the sheriff's court and the court of session have concurrent jurisdiction. The sheriff has also criminal admiralty jurisdiction, but only as to crimes which he would be competent to try if committed on land (The Court of Session Act, 1830, SS. 21 and 22).
By an act of 1821 an arbitral jurisdiction in cases of salvage was given to certain commissioners of the Cinque Ports.
The appeal from county courts and commissioners is to the High Court of Justice, and is exercised by a divisional court of the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division. In cases arising within the Cinque Ports there is an optional appeal to the Ad miralty Court of the Cinque Ports. The appeal from the High Court of Justice is in ordinary admiralty matters, as in others, to the Court of Appeal, and from thence to the House of Lords.
In the high courts, whether in England, Scotland or Ireland, it is not now necessary to distinguish their civil admiralty jurisdiction, from their ordinary civil jurisdiction, except for the purpose of seeing whether there can or cannot be process in rem. Not that every admiralty action can of right be brought in rem, but that no process in rem lies at the suit of a subject unless it be for a matter of admiralty jurisdiction—one, for instance, that could in England have been tried in the High Court of Admiralty. Now these matters of admiralty jurisdiction with process in rem range themselves under four primary and four supplementary heads. The four primary are damage, salvage, bottomry, wages ; and the four supplementary are extensions due to one or other of the statutes of 1840 (Admiralty Court) and 1861 (Admiralty Court Act). They are damage to cargo carried in a ship, necessaries supplied to a ship, mortgage of ship, and master's claim for wages and disbursements on account of a ship. In all these cases, primary and secondary, the process of which_ a plaintiff can avail himself for redress, may be either in personam as in other civil suits, or by arrest of the ship, and, in cases of salvage and bottomry, the cargo. Whenever, also, the ship can be arrested, any freight due can also be attached, by arrest of the cargo to the extent only of the freight which it has to pay. For the purpose of ascertaining whether or not process in rem would lie, there have been distinctions as nice, and the line of admiralty jurisdiction has been drawn as carefully, as in the cases of the admiralty jurisdiction of the county courts (the Theta, [1894] P. 28o; the Gas Float Whitton [1897] App. Cas. 337). Similar questions have been raised in the United States, from De Lovio v. Boit (1815, 2 Gall. 398), and Ramsay v. Al legre (1827, 12 Wheat. 611), down to the more modern cases which will be found quoted in the arguments and judgments in the Gas Float Whitton.
The disciplinary jurisdiction at one time exercised by the Ad miralty Court, over both the royal navy and inerchant vessels, may be said to be obsolete in time of peace, the last remnant of it being suits against merchantmen for flying flags appropriate to men-of-war (the Minerva, 'Soo 3, C. Rob. 34), a matter now more effectively provided against by the Merchant Shipping Act, 1894. In time of war, however, it was exercised in some instances as long as the Admiralty Court lasted, and is now in consequence exercisable by the High Court of Justice (see PRizE) . It was, per haps, in consequence of its ancient disciplinary jurisdiction that the Admiralty Court was made the court to enforce certain portions of the Foreign Enlistment Act, 1870.
Finally, appeals from decisions of courts of inquiry, under the Merchant Shipping Act, cancelling or suspending the certificates of officers in the merchant service, may be made to the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division of the High Court of Justice.
The Admiralty jurisdiction in criminal mat ters extends over all crimes committed on board British ships at sea or in tidal waters, even though such tidal waters be well within foreign territory (R. v. Anderson, 1868, L.R. i C.C.R. 161), but not over crimes committed on board foreign vessels upon the high seas (R. v. Serva, 1845, I Denison C.C.
Whether it extended over crimes committed on foreign ships within territorial waters of the United Kingdom, and whether a zone of three miles round the shores of the United Kingdom was for such purpose territorial water, were the great questions raised in R. v. Keyn (the Franconia, L.R. 2 Ex. Div. 126), and decided in the negative by the majority of the judges. Since then, how ever, the legislature has brought these waters within the juris diction of the admiralty by the Territorial Waters Jurisdiction Act, 2878. Section 2 runs as follows: "An offence committed by a person, whether he is or is not a British subject, on the open sea within the territorial waters of British dominions, is an offence within the jurisdiction of the admiral, although it may have been committed on board or by means of a foreign ship." By s. 7 the "jurisdiction of the admiral" is defined as "including the juris diction of the admiralty of England or Ireland, or either of such jurisdictions as used in any act of parliament" (see TERRITORIAL WATERS). But where portions of the sea and tidal waters, by reason of their partially land-locked positions, are deemed to be in the body of a county, there is no admiralty jurisdiction. Crimes are tried as if they were committed on land within the same county.
Pirates, whatever flag they pretended to fly, were, from 1360 onwards, wherever their crimes were committed, subject to the admiralty jurisdiction. The criminal jurisdiction of the admiralty was first exercised by the High Court of Admiralty; and then, by virtue of the Offences at Sea Act, 1536, transferred to com missioners appointed under the great seal, among whom were to be the admiral or admirals, his or their deputies. Admiralty ses sions were held for this purpose till 1834. Admiralty criminal jurisdiction is now, by virtue of the series of statutes, the Of fences at Sea Act,
the Central Criminal Court Act, 1834, Offences at Sea Act, 1844, and the criminal law consolidation acts passed in 1861, exercised by the Central Criminal Court and by the ordinary courts of assize. Special provision for trial in the colonies of offences committed at sea has been made by an act of William III.
the Offences at Sea Act, 1806, and the Admiralty Offences (Colonial) Act, 1849.
See Clunet, Journal du droit international prive, cited shortly as Clunet; De' Pistoye et Duverdy, Traite des prises inaritimes (1855) vol. ii., tit. viii. ; Phillimore, International Law, vol. i., vol. iii., part xi.; v. Holzendorff, Rechtslexicon (Leipzig, 1881) ; Raikes, The Mari time Codes of Spain and Portugal (i806), of Holland and Belgium (1898), of Italy (190o) ; Autran, Code international de l'abordage, de l'assistance, et du sauvetage maritimes (1902). (P.) United States.—Admiralty jurisdiction was exercised in the colonies by vice-admiralty courts until 1776, then by the State admiralty courts until 1789. The Constitution, Art. III., s. 2, pro vides that the judicial power of the United States "shall extend to all cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction." The Judiciary Act of 1789 (1 U.S.S.L. 76) granted original jurisdiction to United States district courts. The circuit courts were given concurrent original jurisdiction over seizures for slave trading, condemnations of property used by persons in insurrec tion (R.S. 629, 2nd ed.), and in the coolie trade (R.S.2159, 2nd ed.). The supreme court of the District of Columbia was given the same jurisdiction as that of the United States district courts in 1901 (31 U.S.S.L. 1199). Formerly the Judiciary Act authorized appeals from the district court to the circuit court and thence to the Supreme Court. This practice was abolished in 1891, and nine circuit courts of appeals were created (Judicial Code, s. 116). These were the final courts of appeal in admiralty, except that there was the right of a direct appeal to the Supreme Court on questions of jurisdiction (Judicial Code, s. 238), and that the Supreme Court might in its discretion review the judgments of the circuit court of appeals by writs of certiorari (Judicial Code, S. 240).
The circuit courts were abolished in 19" (Judicial Code, s. 289). Direct appeals to the Supreme Court were abolished in 1925 (43 U.S.S.L. 938). Since then the district courts alone have orig inal jurisdiction in all admiralty cases. Appeals lie to the circuit courts of appeal which may certify questions to the Supreme Court for opinion, and the Supreme Court may review the judg ments of the circuit courts of appeal on writs of certiorari.
The district courts have jurisdiction in admiralty of suits against the United States in contract and in tort arising out of the oper ation of merchant vessels (41 U.S.S.L. 525), in tort, towage and salvage arising out of the operation of public vessels (43 U.S.S.L. I I I2), and in certain cases concurrent jurisdiction with the court of claims in contract cases (24 U.S.S.L. 5o5; Cornell S. S. Co. v. U.S., 202 U.S. 184). The district courts have jurisdiction over crimes and offences committed upon vessels of the United States wherever they may be afloat upon navigable waters, but they are tried according to common law criminal procedure (U.S. v. Rodgers, i5oU.S. 249; Hamilton v. U.S., 268 Fed. i5).
may be either in rem with the arrest of the ship, or other maritime property, to enforce a maritime lien (a jus in re) or in personam against a person. Actions in rem are limited to courts of admiralty. Under s. 24 of the Judicial Code, "saving to suitors the right of a common law remedy where the common law is competent to give it," a right in personam may be enforced in a common law court, but the substantive rights of the parties are determined by the maritime law (Southern Pacific v. Jensen, 244 U.S. 205; Knickerbocker Ice Co. v. Stewart,
U.S. 149). Admiralty jurisdiction extends to all navigable waters, including rivers, lakes and canals connected with the sea (The Hine, 4 Wall, 555; Robert TV. Parson, 191 U.S.--i 7). Admiralty jurisdiction extends to prize cases (Jecker v. Montgomery, 13 How. 498), to possessory and petitory suits (The Schooner Tilton, Fed. Cas. No. 14054; Ward v. Peck, 18 How. 267), to maritime contracts and torts. Maritime contracts are determined by their subject matter and in general they relate to ships as such, or to transportation of goods or passengers. They include charter parties, contracts of affreightment, bills of lading, bottomry and respondentia bonds, salvage, towage, pilotage, stevedoring, sup plies and repairs, advances, marine insurance policies, wages, pre ferred mortgages (41 U.S.S.L. 988, 1000; ex parte Easton, 95 U.S. 68). A contract to build a ship or furnish material for its completion is non-maritime (Peoples Ferry Co. v. Beers, 20 How. 393 ; the Thames Co. v. Francis McDonald, 254 U.S. 242). A tort is maritime if the injury is inflicted on navigable waters (Atlantic Transport Co. v. Imbrovek, 234 U.S. 52). If a vessel collides with a pier the damage to the pier is a non-maritime tort because the injury occurs on land (Cleveland Terminal & Valley R.R. Co. v. Cleveland S.S. Co., 208 U.S. 316), but the damage to the vessel is a maritime tort because that injury occurs on navi gable waters (P.W. & B.R.R. Co. v. Phila. etc. S.S. Co., 23 How. 209; Hill v. Board of Freeholders, 45 Fed. 26o). (A. M. B.)
