Claim Of Illegal Detention Of Jews Fails To Survive

Greymouth Evening Star, 30 August 1947, Page 5

Claim Of Illegal Detention Of Jews Fails To Survive

(Rec. 10.45 a.m.) ‘ LONDON, August 29.

The High Court today dismissed the Jewish Agency’s application for a' writ of habeas corpus to prevent British ships landing Jews in Hamburg.- The agency applied for a writ calling upon the Foreign Minister (Mx Ernest Bevin) and the Colonial Secretary ( Mr A. Creech Jones) to produce six persons from the Jewish refugee ships. Mr Justice Jenkins, in dismissing the application, said he must attribute. to the deportation order, which has been made under the Palestine Defence Emergency Regulations,of 1945, the extraterritorial effect necessary to make the order effective. Mr D. N. Pritt, K.C., said this was a test case, the essence of which was that the Jews were illegally detained in ■ the vessels and that their detention was becoming more and more illegal. The detention of any person in British territory was prima facie unlawful. These people, who had been told orally and by leaflet that they were going to Cyprus, were without any legal justification conveyed to France. A deportation order in the vaguest terms was made by the High Commissioner and the immigrants were transferred to three ships. “Here we get a piece of conduct on the part of somebody on behalf of the Government, which is very regrettable. If the immigrants could lawfully be taken to Germany they could be taken to Tristan da Cunha, to the lions’ cage at the zoo, or could be detained in British ships for ever.” Mr Pritt added that the decision to take the immigrants to Hamburg was the “most grossly political blunder” he had ever known.

Mr Justice Jenkins, discussing Mr Pritt’s claim that the announcements and leaflets had misled the immigrants, said he was satisfied that the distribution of the leaflets was merely the result of a misunderstanding. Mr Pritt, by accusing the Government of bad faith, had made a wholly unwarrantable attack on the Government’s bona fides. Mr Justice Jenkins added that it had become the practice to organise parties of Jews to be sent to enter Palestine, if they could, in defiance of the immigration regulations.