THE FOREIGN COMPENSATION ACT 1969 AND A NINETEENTH‐CENTURY PRECURSOR
| Author | Gillian White |
| Published date | 01 November 1972 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1972.tb01341.x |
| Date | 01 November 1972 |
THE FOREIGN COMPENSATION ACT
1969
AND
A NINETEENTH-CENTURY PRECURSOR
IN
an article written shortly after the Foreign Compensation Act
1969
received the Royal Assent, Roger Parker, Q.C. expressed the
hope that the Act might be amended in the future to give
a
right
of appeal
to
claimants and to the
"
fund
"
from determinations
of the Foreign Compensation Commission on all questions of law.
The Act gives a right of appeal to the Court
of
Appeal, by the
"
case stated
"
method, on questions of law as to the jurisdiction
of
the Commission
or
as
to the construction
or
interpretation of
an Order in Council made under the Foreign Compensation Act
1050.2
Roger Parker went on to make the pertinent comment that
''
from the first to last the question of the degree of protection
which
it
was necessary to afford to the determinations of the
Commission was never given the slow and careful consideration
that should always be given to any provision which interferes
with a principle which in this country we believe to be funda-
mental, namely the right to resort to the
The purpose of this article is to contribute to the debate which
it is hoped will continue about the functions of the
F.C.C.
and the
extent to which its decisions ought to be subject to reconsideration
in the courts. The Minister
of
State at the Foreign Office was
quite correct in stating, during the debate on the original Foreign
Compensation Bill in
1950,
that in the past the general practice had
been for the Secretary of State, exercising prerogative power, to
distribute sums paid to the British Government by a foreign govern-
ment in settlement of claims of British subjects. Usually the Foreign
Secretary was assisted by an individual legal expert
or
a com-
mittee, perhaps with a lawyer as
hair man.^
However, a notable omission from the debates in
1950
and in
1958,
when the
F.C.C.
was expressly excluded from the Tribunals
and Inquiries ActYS was any mention
of
the practice of the early
nineteenth century when lump sum compensation had been distri-
buted by commissioners, but with a wide avenue of appeal to the
Privy Council. In the debates in the Lords on the Foreign Com-
pensation Bill
1969,
at the stage when the Bill contained the
1
See below,
p. 593.
2
Foreign Compensation Act 1969,
8.
3.
3
"
The Affair
of
the Foreign Compensation
Bill,"
Law Guardian
NO.
50,
July/
August 1969, pp. 11, 14.
4
H.C.
Deb.
(5th
ser.),
Vol.
475,
col.
41,
May
8,
1950.
5
8.
11
(3). See Griffith and Street,
Principles
of
Administrative Law
(3rd ed.
1963),
pp.
236-237, and de Smith
Judicial Review
of
Administrative Action
(2nd
ed., 1968),
pp.
356359.
584
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