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That the Queen has authority by virtue of Her Prerogative to review the decisions of all Colonial Courts, whether the proceedings be of a civil or criminal character-unless Her Majesty has parted with such authority. But the inconvenience of entertaining such appeals in cases of a strictly criminal nature, is so great, and the obstruction it would offer to the administration of justice in the Colonies is so obvious, that the Judicial Committee are very reluctant to admit an application for such an Appeal.

Ex parte Eduljee Byramjee (11 Jur., part 1, p. 885),

The Charter of Bombay granted by the Crown under the authority of an Act of Parliament constituted the Supreme Court a Court of Oyer and Terminer and jail delivery, to administer criminal justice, with power to allow or refuse permission to appeal in criminal cases; held :

That the Crown where acting under the authority of Parliament may part with any portion of its Prerogative, and that the Crown had pro tanto delegated the power to allow or refuse permission to Appeal.

In Lambkin v. The South Eastern Railway Co. (21 L. C. J. 325),

The Court of Queen's Bench, Montreal, rejected plaintiff's motion for leave to Appeal to Her Majesty in Council from a judgment setting aside the verdict of a jury, and ordering, on defendant's motion, a new trial in a cause in which the verdict of the jury had awarded plaintiff $7,000 damages.

The Court of Q. B. holding that a judgment setting aside the verdict of a jury, and ordering a new trial, was an interlocutory judgment, from which no Appeal is allowed.

A motion for special leave to Appeal was then made directly to the Privy Council:

Their Lordships, held, that the Appeal ought to be allowed; that a judgment setting aside the verdict of a jury and ordering a new trial does not belong to the class of interlocutory judgments from which no Appeal was allowed; but was, as regards the right of Appeal, a judgment of last resort.

Their Lordships said: "If the verdict of a jury be sustained on Appeal, the defendant has a right to resort to a higher Court of Appeal-and the plaintiff is entitled to have the same recourse, if his verdict be set aside."

Sauvageau and Gauthier (L. R., 5 P. C., 494,-22 W. R. 667.)

Under the Code of Civil Procedure for Lower Canada, the appeal

able amount is £500 sterling, but an appeal is also permitted in cases of less value if they be "cases concerning titles to lands or tenements, annual rents, or other matters in which the rights in future of parties may be affected."

An annual rent $11.28c. had been sold for $456, payable in ten equal yearly instalments, and the land was hypothecated to secure the amount. In a suit to enforce payment of certain instalments, the Court of Queen's Bench for Lower Canada granted leave to Appeal to Her Majesty in Council:

Held by their Lordships, that the case did not fall within this provision of the Code of Procedure, and that the Court of Q. B. had no power to allow the Appeal.

Sir James W. Colville, in pronouncing the judgment of their Lordship, said: "Their Lordships have not the means of knowing whether the title to those other choses in action would stand upon precisely the same ground as the title to that in question in this suit. Some of them may have been realized, and as to some of them, notice may have been given long before the insolvency. Their Lordships cannot assume that the facts touching these other debts were before the Judges in Canada; and even if they were, their Lordships, considering the mode in which this litigation arose, are not satisfied that it was a case in which the Court of Queen's Bench would have had jurisdiction to allow an Appeal. Their Lordships. leave it for the consideration

of the appellant, whether he would prefer now to have the appeal dismissed without costs, or whether he would wish the case to stand over, in order that he may present a petition for special leave to appeal, upon such grounds as he thinks might induce their Lordships to recommend Her Majesty to give that leave.

In Trimbee v. Hill (28 W. R. 479),

Held, by their Lordships of the Privy Council, That when a Colonial Act is in the same terms as an Imperial Act, the Colonial Courts ought to govern themselves by the judgment of the Court of Appeal, by which all the Courts in England are bound, until a contrary determination is arrived at by the House of Lords.

In Stanton v. The Home Insurance Co. (2 L. N. 314),—Q. B., Province of Quebec.

Sir A. A. Dorion, C. J., said: This is an application on the part of the appellant to be permitted to Appeal to the Privy Council. The action was for $2,150, a sum less than £500 sterling, but the case has been pending eight years, and the interest and principal united

amounts to considerably more than £500 sterling. In the case of Voyer & Richer, the Privy Council allowed an Appeal (though this Court had refused it), on the ground that, by adding interest and costs, the amount in dispute was over £500 sterling. That was contrary to the whole course of decisions in this country, and the decisions in this country were in conformity to the Statute. (C. S. L. C. cap. 77, s. 25.)

Ramsay, J., said: The Privy Council had powers which this Court had not, and the Privy Council was not bound by our Statute. Until the law was changed, this Court must refuse the Appeal in such cases, subject to the right of the party to make special application to the Privy Council.

Abbott v. Macdonald (In Review; Montreal), (21 L. C. J., p. 311),

Johnson, J., who delivered the judgment of the Court, said: That notwithstanding the prohibition of the Provincial Act 37 Victoria, c. 6, enacting that the party inscribing for a review shall have no Appeal to the Queen's Bench if the judgment inscribed against, is confirmed, the subsequent legislation of the Federal Parliament (38 Victoria c. 11) constituting a Supreme Court, and defining its jurisdiction under powers specially conferred by the British North America Act, 1867, gave by its 17th section, an Appeal to the Supreme Court from all final judgments of the highest Court of final resort, whether such Court be a Court of Appeal or of original Jurisdiction.

In The Colonial Bank of Australasia v. Willan (22 W. R. 516; Privy Council), Held:

That the Supreme Court of the Colony of Victoria has a general power to issue a writ of Certiorari to any inferior Court in the Colony co-extensive with the like power of the Court of Queen's Bench in England, unless the power to issue a Certiorari to these Courts has been taken away by Statute.

In The Queen v. Laliberté (1 ('an. S. C. 117),

Held, on Appeal from the Court of Queen's Bench for the Province of Quebec, that the Supreme Court has no authority to grant a new trial in any criminal case tried in that Province; for section 38 of the Supreme and Exchequer Court Act directs that this Court shall, in the alternative of a reversal, give the judgment which the Court below ought to have given, and since the repeal of section 63, ch. 77 of the Consolidated Statutes of Lower Canada, the Court of Queen's Bench could not have granted a new trial.

Section 49 of the Supreme Court Act, which authorizes the Supreme

Court to grant a new trial, must be read in such a way as to make it consistent with section 38.

In The City of Montreal and Devlin (22 L. C. J. 136), Held:

That leave to Appeal to the Privy Council from a judgment of the Court of Queen's Bench will be granted, although the opposite party has already obtained leave to Appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada. In Richer v. Voyer (L. R., 5 P. C., 462) :

On appeal from the Court of Q. B. for Lower Canada, Sir Montague E. Smith, in delivering the judgment of their Lordships, said, in reference to notes which had been obtained by the respondents from one of the Judges of the Court of Queen's Bench, purporting to be the reasons for his judgment, that the reasons given by the Judge for his judgment ought to be stated publicly at the hearing below, and should not be reserved to influence the decision of the Court of Appeal. The Rule requires the reasons given by the Judges to be communicated to the Registrar. It is obvious, that the omission to send them to the Registrar, as required by the Rule, and allowing only one of the parties to have them, was calculated to give that party an undue advantage.

In the present case, their Lordships felt constrained to refuse to look at notes, so irregularly communicated.

Lord Carnarvon, Secretary of State for the Colonies, on the 28th November, 1874, transmitted a circular despatch to the Governor General of Canada, of which the following is a copy:

Sir, The Administrator of a Colonial Government has recently forwarded to me a Petition to the Queen in Council, from one of the parties in a private suit, for leave to appeal to Her Majesty in Council from a judgment of the Supreme Court of the Colony.

2. I take this opportunity to inform you that it is no part of the duty of the Governor of a Colony to forward such Petitions, but that they should be brought before the Lords of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council by a professional agent of the petitioner, in the usual

manner.

3.-I have further to inform you, that it is not the practice of the Judicial Committee to return any answer to such Petitions until an appearance has been entered on behalf of the petitioner.

4.—If, therefore, application should be made to you by a party in a private suit to transmit a Petition of this nature to the Secretary of State, you will decline to do so; and you will inform the petitioner

what are the proper steps to be taken in the matter. (39. Vict. Can. p. lxxiii).

An attempt on the part of the Dominion Government to bring before the consideration of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council questions relating to the constitutionality of the Common Schools Act, passed in 1871 by the Provincial Legislature of New Brunswick, proved unavailing, for the reasons stated in a letter from the Privy Council office, as follows:

Sir, I have submitted to the Lord President of the Council your letter of the 9th inst., transmitting a copy of a despatch from the Governor General of Canada with enclosures, respecting an Act passed by the Provincial Legislature of New Brunswick with reference to Common Schools, and requesting to know whether the opinion of the Lords of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council on this question can properly be obtained.

It appears to His Lordship that as the power of confirming or disallowing Provincial Acts is vested by the Statute in the Governor General of the Dominion of Canada, acting under the advice of his constitutional advisers, there is nothing in this case which gives to Her Majesty in Council any jurisdiction over this question; though it is conceivable that the effect and validity of this Act may at some future time be brought before Her Majesty on an appeal from the Canadian Courts of Justice.

This being the fact, His Lordship is of opinion that Her Majesty cannot, with propriety, be advised to refer to a Committee of Council in England a question which Her Majesty in Council has at present no authority to determine, and on which the opinion of the Privy Council would not be binding on the parties in the Dominion of Canada.

(Dom. Sess. Papers, 1877, No. 89, p. 407.)

By 40 Vict. c. 21 (1877) the Dominion Parliament created a Court of Maritime Jurisdiction extending to the inland waters of the Province of Ontario, and granting the remedies afforded by any British Court of Vice Admiralty, as if the process of the latter Court extended to the said Province.

In Insurance Company v. Morse (20 Wall. 245), Held:

That an agreement in all cases to abstain from resorting to the Courts of the United States is void as against public policy, and that a State Statute requiring such an agreement is in conflict with the Constitution of the United States, securing to citizens of another State the absolute right to remove their cases into the Federal Court.

This decision re-affirmed in Doyle v. Continental Insurance Co. (94 U. S., S. C., 535) upon the principle that every man is entitled

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