LAWS OF GIBRALTAR.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18346, 12 March 1923, Page 7

LAWS OF GIBRALTAR.

♦ . IMPORTANT LEGAL DECISION. ZAGHLOUL PASHA'S PETITION A. and N.Z. LONDON. March 9. The Privy Council refused leave for Zaghloul Pasha, the Egyptian Nationalist leader, to appeal against the decision of the Supreme Court of Gibraltar, where he is now a political prisoner. The constitutional issue was whether British law applies to Gibraltar, or whether its laws have remained 'die laws of the British garrison. Zaghloul'a counsel contended that the English law applied to Gibraltar and that Zaghloul could not be detained. The decision of the Supreme Court of Gibraltar was to the effect that Zaghloul Pasha could not as a foreigner arrested by the British military authorities on the soil of his own country, which was not a part of the British Empire, claim his writ of habeas corpus. The fact that he was arrested and deported by Viscount Allenby, and that he has since been detained within the British Empire, was not held to give him any remedy in the British Courts. Leave to appeal to the Privy Council was refused. In January last Mr. Upjohn, K.C., applied on behalf of Zaghloul, before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, for special leave to appeal against the decision of the Gibraltar Court. The Judicial Committee was composed of Viscount Haldane (President), Lord Atkinson, Lord Sumner, Lord Wrenbuiry, and Lord Salvesen. The petition, said Mr. Upton, set out that the petitioner was an Egyptian subject at present detained in Gibraltar, and that he appealed against the decision of tho local Court dismissing an application for the issue of a summons to show cause why he should be longer detained. The questions involved were serious and oi great public and constitutional importance, the point being whether servant* of His Majesty were by law entitled to detain as a prisoner in Gibraltar a subject of a nation at peace with this country, who was for political reasons, arrested in and deported from Egypt without any charge being made against him and without trial. The petitioner, who is about 70 years of age, has been a Judge of the High Court, Minister for Education, and Minister for Justice in Eevnt. The Chief Justice at Gibraltar was under a misapprehension in stating that the petitioner had been convicted by a Court-martial in Egypt. He was merely arrested and de ported under no form of law at all. It was within the province of the Supreme Court of Gibraltar to inquire into the validity of "the claim to detain the petitioner ; the plea of an act of State was ineffective in a case where a person is detained in British territory. Answering Lord Haldane', the AttorneyGeneral, representing the Crown, said that so far as he had been able to ascertain there were no English statutes enacting legislation for Gibraltar, and he submitted that the only law in Gibraltar consisted of ordinances enacted by the King, and which the King could from time to time alter at his pleasure. Lord H°'dane said it became a ouestion whether Gibraltar was governed under the Engb'sh system or under ordinances of the Military Governor. A great deal of importance turned upon the answer to that anestion. and it would be helpful for researches to lie made. The hearing was adjourned to enable this course to be followed.