Law Covering Visiting Servicemen Explained

Taranaki Daily News, 28 August 1942, Page 6

Law Covering Visiting Servicemen Explained

Wellington. August 26. The law relating to Allied forces in New Zealand was the subject of an address given to the Wellington branch of the. League of Nations Union yesterday by Professor R. O. McGechan, professor of jurisprudence, international and constitutional law at Victoria University College. With thousands of soldiers beyond the borders of their country, including thousands of New Zealanders, the subject was of great importance, said the chairman, Dr. E. N. Merrington. The trial of an American soldier in Australia for murder had t.hrown it forward. Professor McGechan said he was speaking without having been able to study the recent English legislation on the subject, and pointed out that an alteration of the law in New Zealand also had been promised. In the ordinary way a person was subject to the laws of the country in which he happened to be, but exceptions were made for diplomats and members of armed forces. The exceptions were based on the consent of the State to forgo its right to jurisdiction. There was no doubt that a minor crime in a camp of Allied soldiers in New Zealand would not be dealt with by New Zealand courts. The case of an Allied soldier offending while on duty outside a camp was covered by a Panama case, which gave authority for regarding that soldier as also immune from the law of the country. As for the case of a man on leave, there had been no express decision. Writers of text books differed. The United States legal officer in Australia had said the United States army asked the . Australian authorities to surrender to them for trial and punishment sojdiers who had committed offences because if that were not done such soldiers would be withdrawn from training and from the defence of the country. The American view in the last war was that United States troops had eomplete immunity in England. Press references to the adjustment of the law in England made it seem that the Americans had insisted on the same position as in the last war being created. One could not tell till one had seen the Act. In the absence of special Acts, New Zealand depended on international law, which was somewhat vague. If the Government wished to help international law to some extent it might induce the courts to try some . visiting servicemen who committed an offence while on leave, but be did not think that was likely. He had it on very good auth#rity that the universal practice in New Zealand had been to hand over to their own authorities visiting servicemen who had committed offences, but very few cases had arisen