Admiralty Law - Individual Countries

Individual Countries

Common law legal systems are opposed to civil law legal systems, that prevail in Europe and trace back to old Roman and modern French Law.

Most of the common law countries (including Pakistan, Singapore, India, and many other Commonwealth of Nations countries) follow English statute and case law. India still follows many Victorian-era British statutes such as the Admiralty Court Act 1861 . Whilst Pakistan now has its own statute, the Admiralty Jurisdiction of High Courts Ordinance, 1980 (Ordinance XLII of 1980), it also follows English case law. One reason for this is that the 1980 Ordinance is partly modelled on old English admiralty law, namely the Administration of Justice Act 1956. The current statute dealing with the Admiralty jurisdiction of the England and Wales High Court is the Supreme Court Act 1981, ss. 20-24, 37. The provisions in those sections are, in turn, based on the International Arrest Convention 1952. Other countries which do not follow the English statute and case laws, such as Panama, also have established well-known maritime courts which decide international cases on a regular basis.

Admiralty courts assume jurisdiction by virtue of the presence of the vessel in its territorial jurisdiction irrespective of whether the vessel is national or not and whether registered or not, and wherever the residence or domicile or their owners may be. A vessel is usually arrested by the court to retain jurisdiction. State-owned vessels are usually immune from arrest.