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GAZETTE
JULY AUGUST 1980
warrant was not sufficient to identify
a corresponding offence in Irish Law
and he ordered the Plaintiff to be
released. That High Court Order was
appealed to the Supreme Court.
Held (per
Henchy J.) that to show
the
necessary
correspondence
between the offence in the warrant
and an offence in the State, it was
necessary for the warrant to identify
the offence by reference to the factual
components relied on; and that it was
only by looking at those components
that a Court could decide whether the
offence would, regardless of what
name was attached to it, if committed
here, constitute a corresponding
criminal offence of the required
gravity. The words in the warrant
should be given their ordinary mean-
ing, unless they were used in a con-
text which suggested that they had a
special signification. As the state-
ment in the warrant in question that
the offence was contrary to Section 8
of the (English) Theft Act, 1968, was
made as a separate entry in that
warrant, it was not necessary to have
regard to what that Section said.
Since "rob" in ordinary usage meant
"deprive a person of property un-
justifiably by force" the District
Justice only had to decide whether
the charge in the warrant would
constitute an offence if the same
conduct were charged here. Since the
particulars of offence in the warrant
would amount to an indictable
offence in the State under one or
other of the unrepealed sections of
the Larceny Act, 1916, there was the
necessary correspondence and an
order for delivery of the Plaintiff was
made. High Court decision reversed.
On the question of correspondence
of offences the Court considered the
Supreme Court decisions of
The
State (Kelly)
v.
Furlong
[1971] I.R.
132; and
Wyatt
v.
McLoughlin
11974] I.R. 378, and also the Eng-
lish decision of
Re Arkins
[1966] 3
All E.R. 651, (dealing with the
corresponding provision in the
Backing of Warrants (Republic of
Ireland) Act, 1965).
Note:
At the end of his judgment
Henchy J. stated the following:
"Unfortunately, in disregard of
the repeated statements from this
Court that it is the duty of the
authorities in this State to see that
extradition proceedings in our
courts are speedily disposed of,
these proceedings have been
allowed to drag on for an in-
ordinate and inexcusable length of
time. Four and a half years have
been allowed to elapse between the
issue of the warrant and this final
disposition of the extradition
proceedings. Whether from the
point of view of the plaintiff or
from that of the prosecuting
authorities
in
England,
the
chances of a fair and proper trial
have not, to put it mildly, been en-
hanced by that delay".
William Matthew Wilson v. John
Sheehan,
Supreme Court, (per
Henchy J. with O'Higgins C. J. and
Griffin J.) 23 May, 1979 —
unreported.
ADMIRALTY — SALVAGE
Salvage by lifeboat men in the course
of saving life should not be awarded
as a proportion of the value of the
rescue vessel but on the basis of
remuneration for services.
The Plaintiffs' appeal to the Supreme
Court arose from a High Court
decision (per Finlay P.) to award
them £750 for the salvage of motor
trawler "Ora et Labora" (which had
an agreed value of £45,000) in July,
1974. The Plaintiffs were the
coxswain and crew of the Valentia
lifeboat called out by a "Mayday"
distress message from the trawler on
3 July 1974, the engines having
failed a mile off a lee shore. The wind
was westerly force six. In response to
the message the lifeboat was
launched at approximately 9 p.m.
From their experience the coxswain
and crew of the lifeboat had
calculated that the trawler would be
likely to drift to the cliffs near Ducall
and Bolus Heads, Co. Kerry, and
would be in grave danger not only
from the cliffs but from submerged
rocks some hundreds of yards to sea-
ward. The lifeboat had reached the
disabled vessel, then only several
hundred yards from the lee shore, at
approximately 11 p.m. The crew had
then passed a line to the trawler and
had towed it to safety and ultimately
to Knightstown where it had been
secured at 4.15 a.m. on the following
morning.
The High Court found that there
was an immediate danger of the loss
of the motor trawler. The Plaintiffs
had claimed salvage based on a pro-
portion of the value of the salved
property. The claim to any salvage
had been resisted by the Defendants,
but on the hearing of the appeal the
latter conceded that salvage was
awardable but only on the basis of
remuneration in respect of the work
actually performed by the Plaintiffs.
Under the regulations of the Royal
National Lifeboat Institution, which
was the owner of the lifeboat, where a
lifeboat has been launched on life
saving duty, the coxswain and crew
are permitted to engage in salvage
services to property subject to
refunding consumables, the cost of
repairs and replacement resulting
from loss or damage incurred during
the service. The Institution does not
claim salvage or allow salvage to be
claimed on its behalf. Where there-
fore a salvage claim arises in respect
of salvage to property, it is a personal
claim by the individual lifeboat men
and is in respect of the personal
services rendered by them; there can
be no claim in respect of services
rendered to the salved vessel by the
lifeboat itself.
The question for the Court to
determine was the amount of an
award as would fairly compensate
the coxswain and crew, without in-
justice to the interests of the salved
vessel, the award to be such as
would, in the interests of public
policy, encourage others in like
circumstances
to
perform like
services.
English cases considered in the
High Court and on appeal were the
"Corcrest"
[1947] 80 Ll.L.Rep.,
78, the
"Guernsey Coast" [
1950] 83
Ll.L.Rep., 483 and the
"Africa
Occidental"
11951] 2 Ll.L.Rep.,
107. The
Corcrest
case
was
considered to be irrelevant to the
present case in that on that occasion
the lifeboat ultimately put to sea to
salve a vessel known to be
unmanned, the crew embarking
solely on a salvage mission. The
Guernsey Coast cast
and the
Africa
Occidental case
were considered to
enunciate
principles
that
were
applicable. In both cases the lifeboat
was launched on a rescue mission
and whilst engaged on that purpose
assisted in the salvage of the striken
vessel.
It had been held by the High Court
that salvage should not be calculated
upon the basis of a proportion of the
value of the ship salved but on the
basis of remuneration or reward to
the lifeboat men. In assessing the