Allied Forces (Czechoslovakia) Case

• Docket Number: Case No. 31
• Date: 15 July 1942
• Court: Obsolete Court (Czechoslovakia)

Czechoslovak Military Court of Appeal in London.

Case No. 31

Allied Forces (Czechoslovakia) Case.

Extradition — Miscellaneous — Extradition Treaty between Great Britain and Czechoslovakia — Inapplicability to Members of the Czechoslovak Army in Great Britain.

Jurisdiction — Territorial — Exceptional Jurisdiction of Foreign Courts within National Territory — Jurisdiction of Czechoslovak Military Courts on British Territory — English Allied Forces Act, 1940.

The Facts.—Second-Lieutenant L. was an officer of the Czechoslovak Army which fought against Germany in France in 1940 and which came to Great Britain after the French armistice in order to continue the struggle against Germany. He was prosecuted by the Czechoslovak military authorities in Great Britain for the crime of extortion, within the meaning of the Czechoslovak Military Criminal Code, committed in France during the retreat of the French and the Czechoslovak armies in June 1940. The Czechoslovak Military Court in Great Britain found the accused guilty and convicted him. The accused appealed. He contended that the British Allied Forces Act of 1940, which regulated the jurisdiction of the allied military courts on British territory, had no retrospective effect.

Held: by the Czechoslovak Military Court of Appeal in London, that the appeal must be allowed and the conviction quashed.

The Court said: “On August 22, 1940, a British Act, the Allied Forces Act, 1940 (3 & 4 Geo. 6, ch. 51), came into force. This Act deals, inter alia, with the jurisdiction of the military courts of allied forces established on British territory. By sect. 1 of the Act, the military courts of any allied Power, having for the time being armed forces in the United Kingdom, were authorized to try on British territory members of those armed forces according to the law of that Power. One of these Powers is the Czechoslovak Republic. Section 2 (3) provides for an exception to the general rule laid down in section 1 by enacting that a military court of an allied force shall not have jurisdiction to try a member of that force who had been convicted or acquitted by a British civil court for the same offence.

“What is the authority of the Allied Forces Act in relation to a Czechoslovak military court established in Great Britain? It must be emphasized that a Czechoslovak court cannot derive its power to exercise jurisdiction as a Czechoslovak court from any source other than one of Czechoslovak law. These sources are for the Czechoslovak military courts the Czechoslovak Military Code of Criminal Procedure of July 5, 1912; the Act concerning the military criminal procedure in the field, of June 8, 1937; and, so far as the jurisdiction is at present exercised in Great Britain, also the Decree of the President of the Czechoslovak Republic concerning the Czechoslovak field courts, which was signed on October 26, 1940, and published in the Czechoslovak Official Gazette...