The Gazette 1984

GAZETTE

JULY/AUGIJST 1984

(c) The jurisdiction of the Court shall be exercised by the Cork Circuit Court Judge." Section 27 of the 1961 Act goes on to say: (1) "The jurisdiction, which is by virtue of this Act, vested in or exercisable by the Circuit Court, the Cork Local Admiralty Court, and the Cork Local Bankruptcy Court respectively, shall be exercised so far as regards pleadings, practice and procedure generally, including liability to costs, in the manner provided by rules of Court and where, as regards the jurisdiction of the Cork Local Admiralty Co u r t . .. there is no such provision in such Rules and so long as there is no rule in reference thereto, it shall be exercised as nearly as possible as it might have been exercised by the former Recorder of Cork. (2) The rule-making authority for the Circuit Court shall also be the Rule-making authority for the Cork Local Admiralty Court. . . ." In the case of The State (Kinvarra Shipping Ltd.) -v- Thomas J. Neylon , 62 O'Keeffe J., in the High Court, discussed and outlined the jurisdiction of the Cork Local Admiralty Court, of which he said: 63 "I think that the effect of section 23 of the Act of 1961 64 was to establish, as a new court, the Cork Local Admiralty Court and that its jurisdiction was to be exercised by the Circuit Court Judge for the time being assigned to the Cork Circuit." This view of the Court as a separate court is reinforced if one takes account of section 3 of the Courts Act, 1971, 65 which says: "The jurisdiction in Admiralty Causes conferred on the Cork Local Admiralty Court by section 23 of the Act of 1961, shall be exercisable by that Court in any case where the claim does not exceed £2,000.00." Thus, the separate treatment of the Local Court, both with regard to its establishment and with regard to the extension of the monetary limits on its jurisdiction, lends weight to the arguments of O'Keeffe J. (The Courts Act 1981 does not refer to the Local Court in any way). Jurisdiction of the Local Court As we saw, by virtue of section 23 of the 1961 Act, the Court is to have like jurisdiction in Admiralty Causes as the Recorder of Cork had before the commencement of the 1924 Act. By virtue of section 80 of the 1867 Act, the Local Courts were to have like jurisdiction as the High Court of Admiralty, subject to the monetary limits on jurisdiction set out therein. These limits must now be taken to be amended by section 3 of the 1971 Act. The range of matters over which the Court has jurisdiction would thus be the same as those over which the former High Court of Admiralty had jurisdiction and which are listed at the beginning of this article. • Footnotes 1. See Pritchards Digest of Admiralty and Marine Law, 3rd Edition, Volume One, p.684. 2. See 94 I.L.T. & S.J. p. 143 for reports of plans to celebrate the sixth centenary. 3. The Laws of Oleron. 4. See Eighteenth Report of Courts of Justice in Ireland (High Court of

Admiralty), Session Paper No. 5 (Anno 1829) p.2. 5. The Court of Admiralty (Ireland) Act, 1867, (Cap. 114) "An Act to extend the jurisdiction, alter and amend the procedure and practice, and to regulate the establishment of the Court of Admiralty — 20th of August 1867". 6. Amended by the Court of Admiralty (Ireland) Amendment Act, 1876, (C 28), and the Courts Acts. 7. Section 2: defined as the Court of Admiralty in Ireland. 8. Section 27. 9. Section 28. 10. Section 29. 11. Section 30. 12. Section 31. 13. Section 32. 14. Section 33. 14. Section 34. 15. Section 34. With regard to the question of mortgages, one should note the case of R.D. Cox Ltd., Staatliche Kreditanstalt Oldenburg- Bremen and Deutsche Schiff-Fahts-Bank Atkien-Gessellschaft -v- The owners of the M.V. "Fritz Raabe", a Supreme Court majority decision of the 1st of August 1974, a short note of which appears in the "Recent Irish Cases" section of the I. L.S.I. Gazette of December 1974, (Vol. 68, No. 10). That case concerned a German registered and German owned vessel which was subject to German registered mortgages in favour of the co-plaintiff German banks. In 1969, the first co-plaintiff undertook repairs and supplied "necessaries" to the ship and being unpaid, they issued proceeding in August 1969 on foot of which they obtained judgment in January 1970 for £1,053 and costs. Also, without prejudice to any subsequent claims, a lien was granted over the vessel. Waterford Harbour Commissioners also obtained a judgment in respect of harbour dues and in February 1970 on foot of a High Court Order, the ship was sold and £10,500 lodged in court. Also in February 1970, the German Banks issued Admiralty proceedings in rem against the owners of the vessel on foot of their mortgages which had been registered in 1957. When they sought judgment in default, the Irish plaintiffs contended that as the mortgages were not registered in Ireland the German Banks could not institute such proceedings. (As the ship was not an Irish ship, the various mortgages could not be entered in the Irish Registry, and could not therefore rank as registered mortgages in Ireland.) In the High Court, O'Keeffe J. allowed the claims of the Banks and it was agreed that the order of priorities would be (1) The Irish plaintiffs costs; (2) claims for wages; (3) claims of the German Bank mortgagees and (4) claims for necessaries. The Harbour Commissioners appealed so much of the judgment as declared the Banks as unregistered mortgagees to be entitled to receive payment of their debt in priority to the Commissioner's claim and it was contended that the German Banks were not mortgagees for the purposes of the distribution of the sale proceeds. The net question was whether the High Court could grant relief in an action in rem brought by the owner of an unregistered mortgage in an admiralty action. The Supreme Court (Walsh, Henchy and Griffin J.J. with Henchy dissenting) decided that (1) The mortgages created valid charges long before the other claims arose. (2) The other claims, in so far as they constituted a lien, were subsequent in time to the mortgages. (3) The High Court has jurisdiction to entertain suits in respect of foreign mortgages of moveable property within their jurisdiction and to order the sale of that property. (4) The Maritime lien did not require possession of the ship, but rested on the basis that the lien travelled with the ship, into whoever's possession it came, and could be realised by proceedings in rem. (5) The Admiralty Court (Ireland) Act 1867 set out in detail the jurisdiction of the Court. (6) The original jurisdiction of the High Court embraces all justiciable controversies relating to shipping and the High Court was a new court and not simply an extended version of the old Court of Admiralty. Its jurisdiction, of course, embraced all matters over which the former High Court of Admiralty had jurisdiction. (7) The fact that particular procedures were or were not available in former courts was not relevant and the exclusion of jurisdiction claims in respect of mortgages from the old Court was not applicable to the new Court.

(8) Order 64, Rule 1, of the Superior Court Rules of 1962, defined an "admiralty action" as, inter alia, "a claim in respect of a (footnotes — continued on page 171) 167