Names of appointees, &c. to be notified to the home government. Saving the powers of the admiralty. the possession that a formal appointment thereto has been made by the admiralty in the manner hereinafter mentioned, and may, for good and reasonable cause, to be approved by the governor, remove the person so appointed. The judge may also appoint some person to act as registrar or marshal during the temporary absence of either of those officers. 6. On any vacancy in the office of judge, registrar, or marshal of any Vice Admiralty Court, the governor of the British possession in which the Court is established shall, as soon as is practicable, communicate to one of her Majesty's principal secretaries of state the fact of the vacancy, and the name of the person succeeding or appointed to the vacant office. 7. Nothing in this act contained shall be taken to affect the power of the admiralty to appoint any vice admiral, or any judge, registrar, marshal or other officer of any Vice Admiralty Court, as heretofore, by warrant from the admiralty, and by letters patent issued under seal of the High Court of Admiralty of England (m). Past proceed- 8. No act done by any person in the capacity of judge, registrar, or ings confirmed. marshal of any Vice Admiralty Court, which shall not have been set aside by any competent authority before the passing of this act shall be held invalid by reason that such person had not been duly appointed, but all such acts shall be as valid and effectual as if done by a person duly appointed. Protection of officers. Jurisdiction of 9. No action, prosecution, or other proceeding shall be brought against any such person by reason of the illegality or informality of any act hereby declared to be valid and effectual. 10. The matters in respect of which the Vice Admiralty Courts shall Vice Admiralty have jurisdiction are as follows: Courts. (1.) Claims for seamen's wages: Claims for master's wages, and for his disbursements on account of the ship: (3.) Claims in respect of pilotage: (4.) Claims in respect of salvage of any ship, or of life or goods there from: (5.) Claims in respect of towage: (6.) Claims for damage done by any ship: (7.) Claims in respect of bottomry or respondentia bonds: (8.) Claims in respect of any mortgage where the ship has been sold by a decree of the Vice Admiralty Court, and the proceeds are under its control: (9.) Claims between the owners of any ship registered in the possession in which the Court is established, touching the ownership, possession, employment, or earnings of such ship: (10.) Claims for necessaries supplied, in the possession in which the Court is established, to any ship of which no owner or part owner is domiciled within the possession at the time of the necessaries being supplied: (11.) Claims in respect of the building, equipping, or repairing within any British possession of any ship of which no owner or part owner is domiciled within the possession at the time of the work being done. (m) See the Appellate Jurisdiction Act, 1876 (39 & 40 Vict. c. 59), which in sect. 23 removes doubts as to the exercise by the Admiralty of the powers here referred to. Jurisdiction 11. The Vice Admiralty Courts shall also have jurisdiction(1.) In all cases of breach of the regulations and instructions relating to of Vice Adher Majesty's navy at sea: (2.) In all matters arising out of droits of admiralty. miralty Courts. tions. 12. Nothing contained in this act shall be construed to take away or Nothing to restrict the jurisdiction conferred upon any Vice Admiralty Court by any restrict existact of parliament in respect of seizures for breach of the revenue, customs, ing jurisdictrade, or navigation laws, or of the laws relating to the abolition of the slave trade (n), or to the capture and destruction of pirates and piratical vessels, or any other jurisdiction now lawfully exercised by any such Court; or any jurisdiction now lawfully exercised by any other Court within her Majesty's dominions. 13. The jurisdiction of the Vice Admiralty Courts, except where it is expressly confined by this act to matters arising within the possession in which the Court is established, may be exercised, whether the cause or right of action has arisen within or beyond the limits of such possession. As to matters arising beyond limits of colony. 14. Her Majesty may, by order in council, from time to time establish Her Majesty rules touching the practice to be observed in the Vice Admiralty Courts, as empowered to also tables of the fees to be taken by the officers and practitioners thereof establish and for all acts to be done therein, and may repeal and alter the existing and alter rules and all future rules and tables of fees, and establish new rules and tables of fees in addition thereto, or in lieu thereof (0). 15. A copy of any rules or tables of fees which may at any time be established shall be laid before the House of Commons within three months from the establishing thereof, or if parliament shall not be then sitting, or if the session shall terminate within one month from that date, then within one month after the commencement of the next session. pos tables of fees. Rules and tables of fees to be laid before the House of Commons. 16. The rules and tables of fees in force in any Vice Admiralty Court To be entered shall, as soon as possible after they have been received in the British in the records session in which the Court is established, be entered by the registrar in of the Courts. the public books or records of the Court, and the books or records in which they are so entered shall at all reasonable times be open to the inspection of the practitioners and suitors in the Court. 17. A copy of the rules and tables of fees in force in any Vice Admiralty To be hung up Court shall be kept constantly hung up in some conspicuous place as well in Court, &c. in the Court as in the office of the registrar. 18. The fees established for any Vice Admiralty Court shall, after the Established date fixed for them to come into operation, be the only fees which shall be taken by the officers and practitioners of the Court. 19. Any person who shall feel himself aggrieved by the charges of any of the practitioners in any Vice Admiralty Court, or by the taxation thereof by the officers of the Court, may apply to the High Court of Admiralty of England to have the charges taxed, or the taxation thereof revised. (n) See the Slave Trade Act, 1873 (36 & 37 Vict. c. 88), s. 5. It is understood that rules of practice intended to be issued under the provisions of this section are in course of preparation, and will shortly be submitted for the approval of her Majesty in Council. (0) See the Slave Trade (East African Courts) Act, 1873 (36 & 37 Vict. c. 59), which confers vice admiralty fees to be the only fees taken. Taxation may be revised by the High Court of Admiralty. Registrar may administer oaths. As to the hearing of cross causes. No appeal save from final sentence or order. Appeal to be made within six months. Acts repealed. Saving rules established under 2 & 3 Will. 4, c. 51. 20. The registrar of any Vice Admiralty Court shall have power to administer oaths in relation to any matter depending in the Court; and any person who shall wilfully swear falsely in any proceeding before the registrar, or before any other person authorized to administer oaths in the Court, shall be deemed guilty of perjury, and shall be liable to all the penalties attaching to wilful and corrupt perjury. 21. If a cause of damage by collision be instituted in any Vice Admiralty Court, and the defendant institute a cross cause in respect of the same collision, the judge may, on application of either party, direct both causes to be heard at the same time and on the same evidence, and if the ship of the defendant in one of the causes has been arrested, or security given by him to answer judgment, but the ship of the defendant in the other cause cannot be arrested, and security has not been given to answer judgment therein, the Court may, if it think fit, suspend the proceedings in the former cause until security has been given to answer judgment in the latter cause. 22. The appeal from a decree or order of a Vice Admiralty Court lies to her Majesty in council; but no appeal shall be allowed, save by permission of the judge, from any decree or order not having the force or effect of a definitive sentence or final order (p). 23. The time for appealing from any decree or order of a Vice Admiralty Court shall, notwithstanding any existing enactment to the contrary, be limited to six months from the date of the decree or order appealed from; and no appeal shall be allowed where the petition of appeal to her Majesty shall not have been lodged in the registry of the High Court of Admiralty and of appeals within that time, unless her Majesty in council shall, on the report and recommendation of the judicial committee of the privy council, be pleased to allow the appeal to be prosecuted, notwithstanding that the petition of appeal has not been lodged within the time prescribed (p). 24. The acts enumerated in the schedule hereto annexed marked (B.) are hereby repealed, to the extent therein mentioned, but the repeal thereof shall not affect the validity of any rules, orders, regulations, or tables of fees heretofore established and now in force, in pursuance of the act of the second and third William the fourth, chapter fifty-one; but such rules, orders, regulations, and tables of fees shall continue in force until repealed or altered under the provisions of this act. SCHEDULE A. List of the existing Vice Admiralty Courts to which this Act applies (q). c. 19. 26 & 27 VICT. c. 51. An Act to amend the Passengers Act, 1855 (t). [13th July, 1863.] 18 & 19 Vict. WHEREAS it is expedient to amend the Passengers Act, 1855, in the particulars hereinafter mentioned: Be it therefore enacted by the Queen's most excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows: Short title. Definition of 66 passenger ship" in section 3 of recited act repealed, and other provisions made. Mail steamers carrying other than cabin passengers to be subject to the act. Repeal of tonnage check on number of pas sengers to be carried in a passenger ship. Cabin passengers to be included in 1. This act may be cited for all purposes as "The Passengers Act Amendment Act, 1863." [Section 2 is repealed by the Statute Law Revision Act, 1875 (38 & 39 Vict. c. 66).] 3. The definition in the third section of the Passengers Act, 1855, of the term "passenger ship," is hereby repealed, and for the purposes of the said act and of this act the term "passenger ship" shall signify every description of sea-going vessel, whether British or foreign, carrying upon any voyage to which the provisions of the said Passengers Act, 1855, shall extend, more than fifty passengers, or a greater number of passengers than in the proportion of one statute adult to every thirty-three tons of the registered tonnage of such ships, if propelled by sails, or than one statute adult to every twenty tons, if propelled by steam (u). 4. So much of the fourth section of the said Passengers Act, 1855, as exempts from the operation of the act any steam vessel carrying mails under contract with the government of the state or colony to which such vessel may belong is hereby repealed, and every steam vessel, whether British, foreign, or colonial, which shall carry passengers other than cabin passengers in sufficient number to bring such vessel within the definition of a passenger ship, as set forth in the third section of this act, shall be subject to the provisions of the said act and of this act in like manner as any passenger ship not carrying a mail (u). 5. The first rule of the fourteenth section of the said Passengers Act, 1855, which limits the number of persons to be carried in a passenger ship by her registered tonnage, together with so much of the concluding portion of the same section as relates to such rule, is hereby repealed, except so far as relates to any penalty incurred or legal proceedings taken thereunder (v). 6. In the passenger lists required by the sixteenth and seventeenth sections of the Passengers Act, 1855, to be delivered by the master of every ship before demanding a clearance, there shall be set forth, in adpassenger lists. dition to the other particulars required by the Passengers Act, 1855, the names of all cabin passengers on board such ships, specifying whether they respectively are under or over twelve years of age, and at what place the passengers and cabin passengers respectively are to be landed, and the schedule (B.) (x) to the said act shall be altered accordingly. Limit of penalty on stow 7. The limit of the penalty imposed by the eighteenth section of the (t) See the Passengers Act Amendment Act, 1870 (33 & 34 Vict. c. 95); the M. S. Act, 1872, and the M. S. Act, 1876. () The words printed in italics in sections 3 and 4 are repealed by the Statute Law Revision Act, 1875 (38 & 39 Vict. c. 66), as to all her Majesty's dominions. (v) This section is repealed by the Statute Law Revision Act, 1875 (38 & 39 Vict. c. 66), as to all her Majesty's dominions. (x) See post, "Forms," No. 32. |