Masson v R

• Jurisdiction: Mauricio
• Date: 20 June 1962
• Court: Court of Appeal (Mauritius)

Mauritius, Appellate Court.

(Neerunjun C.J. and Glover J.)

Masson

and

The Queen.

Jurisdiction — Territorial limits of — Extraterritorial effect of criminal statute — Colonial statute — The law of Mauritius.

The Facts.—Masson was the editor of a newspaper in Mauritius, “Le Mauritien”. In October 1961, he published in it an article containing literal translations of confidential extracts from the reports of proceedings of the 1961 London Conference on the Mauritius Constitutional Review. Masson was charged and convicted under Section 71 of the Mauritius Penal Code (Supplementary) Ordinance, Sections 70 to 85 of which contained provisions relating to the protection of official secrets. At the trial it was argued on behalf of the accused that there was no jurisdiction to try the charge preferred since the Court possessed no extraterritorial jurisdiction and it was not established that the receiving of the confidential documents took place in Mauritius. The Magistrate held that under Section 85 (1) of the Ordinance he had jurisdiction by virtue of being a court of a place in which the accused had been found, even if the offence had not been committed there. Section 85 (1) reads:

“For the purposes of the trial of a person for an offence under sections 70 to 85 of this Ordinance the offence shall be deemed to have been committed either at the place in which the same actually was committed or at any place in the Colony in which the offender may be found.”

On appeal,

Held: that the appeal must be rejected. Colonial statutes have no extraterritorial effect, even as to British subjects, unless power of extraterritorial jurisdiction has been expressly or impliedly conceded to the Colony, and an alleged offence must therefore be shown to have been committed within the Colony. In this case, there was sufficient evidence that the confidential documents had been received in Mauritius.

On the question of jurisdiction, Neerunjun C.J. said: “In the course of the trial the question arose as to whether the Court had jurisdiction to try the charge preferred in the information if it were not proved that the receiving of the confidential documents took place in the Colony, in other words, if it were not shown that the offence was committed here and not abroad. It will be recalled that, at the close of the case for the prosecution in the trial Court, Mr. Koenig, who appeared for the appellant, had submitted that his client had no case to answer since the requirement to confer...