A PALPABLE HIT.

Evening Star, Issue 11676, 7 February 1902, Page 1

A PALPABLE HIT.

Mr Edward Jenks, former dean of the Faculty of Law at- tho University of Melbourne, and now lecturer on English Law :.t Oxford, is not satisfied with the Ixmj Chancellor’s assumption in the Marais case that the Petition oi Right, in prohibiting the exercise of martial law, restricted its prohibition to time of peace. Tho enacting or “operative” words of the statute (writes Mr Jenks in ‘ The Times *) contains no such restriction. If the words in the “redial" clauses of the document, in which the acts expressly complained of are described as being “ such summary course and “order as is agreeable to martial law and “js used in armies in time of war,” are transported by reference into the enacting clause, the logical result is that we get a prohibition of tbe application of martial law not merely to civilians in time of peace, but to soldiers in time of war. That this was the construction pat upon the Petition of Right immediately after the Revohrtim' is clear from the words of the preambles to the Mutiny Acts of William HI., 1692; "And whereas no man may be forejudged “of life or limb, or subjected to any kind “of punishment by martial law.” If, then, says' Mr Jenks, the assumption of the Privy Council be correct, we get the following extraordinary result: —That whereas the application of martial law to soldiers even in time of war (for the statutes of William HI. clearly refer to the control of troops on actual service) requires an express sanction by Parliament, yet the application of such law to civilians may be directed at the sole discretion of the Executive. Mr Jenks seems to have made a “ palpable bit.”