Lemmel v R

• Jurisdiction: Guyana
• Judgment Date: 26 February 1951
• Date: 26 February 1951
• Docket Number: Case No. 56
• Court: Supreme Court (British Guiana)

West Indies, Court of Appeal (on Appeal from the Supreme Court of British Guiana).

(Furness-Smith C.P., Worley C.J., Jackson C.J.)

Case No. 56

Lemmel and Others

and

Rex.

Jurisdiction — Irregular Apprehension — Action of Officers of Foreign Sovereign in Territory of the Foreign Sovereign — Power of Municipal Court to Comment thereon.

The Facts.—During the trial of the three appellants on charges of breaking, entering, and stealing from a pawnbrokery, and of receiving stolen goods, it was objected that the Supreme Court of British Guiana had no jurisdiction over the accused because the detention or arrest of the accused had been effected in Venezuela, a foreign sovereign State, by officers of that State who had permitted officers of the British Guiana police force to arrest the accused and bring them into the Colony for trial. The trial Judge ruled that the Court had jurisdiction, and the appellants were convicted. The appellants appealed against this ruling.

Held: that the appeal must be dismissed. The ruling of the trial Judge “was correct and in accordance with the established principle of law that ‘summonses, warrants and arrests are mere machinery for securing the attendance of an accused person, and the invalidity of any of these preliminary steps will not affect the jurisdiction of the justices if the accused person appears and the charge is one which the justices have power to investigate’”. A British Court had no jurisdiction to comment upon the activities of the officers of a foreign sovereign State acting in the territory of that State.

The Court said: “… In our opinion the objections raised are fully met by the provisions of sub-section (2) of section 57 of the Criminal Law (Procedure) Ordinance, which provides as follows:

‘(2) When any accused person is before a magistrate, whether voluntarily or upon summons, or after being apprehended with or without warrant, or while in custody for the same or any other offence, the preliminary inquiry may be held notwithstanding any irregularity, illegality, defect, or error in the summons or warrant, or the issuing, service or execution thereof, and notwithstanding the want of any information upon oath, or any defect in the information, or any irregularity or illegality in the arrest or custody of the accused person.’

This sub-section embodies the principle set out in Vol. IX, para. 102, of Halsbury's Laws of England, 2nd ed., p. 77, as follows:

‘Summonses, warrants and arrests are mere...