Campbell v. Hall
Encyclopedia
Campbell v Hall was a case decided in the Court of King's Bench in 1774. On its face it was an action for recovery of sums paid to a tax agent. The matter was first heard in the Mayor's and City of London Court
Mayor's and City of London Court
The Mayor's and City of London Court is a County Court in the City of London. It is located at Guildhall Buildings, Basinghall Street.The current court is the successor to courts pre-dating the County Courts Act 1846, which introduced the modern system of county courts...

, which court found a special verdict and remitted it to the Court of King's Bench, which then heard the claim on a matter of law.

The decision turned on the validity of a tax imposed in Grenada
Grenada
Grenada is an island country and Commonwealth Realm consisting of the island of Grenada and six smaller islands at the southern end of the Grenadines in the southeastern Caribbean Sea...

. This was the trigger for an examination of the constitutional position of Grenada and for a review of the position in all British territories.

The political situation at the time of the judgment was interesting too; this was the time of the tax rebellion
No taxation without representation
"No taxation without representation" is a slogan originating during the 1750s and 1760s that summarized a primary grievance of the British colonists in the Thirteen Colonies, which was one of the major causes of the American Revolution...

 in the American colonies (including the West Indies) and was indeed two years before the American Declaration of Independence. The judgment therefore had the potential to cause political trouble.

Lord Mansfield
William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield
William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield, SL, PC was a British barrister, politician and judge noted for his reform of English law. Born to Scottish nobility, he was educated in Perth, Scotland before moving to London at the age of 13 to take up a place at Westminster School...

's judgment looked beyond the narrow facts of the case. He reviewed the law applicable to British colonies in general and laid down a series of important points of constitutional law
Constitution of the United Kingdom
The constitution of the United Kingdom is the set of laws and principles under which the United Kingdom is governed.Unlike many other nations, the UK has no single core constitutional document. In this sense, it is said not to have a written constitution but an uncodified one...

 applicable to British possessions.

The Facts

Grenada
Grenada
Grenada is an island country and Commonwealth Realm consisting of the island of Grenada and six smaller islands at the southern end of the Grenadines in the southeastern Caribbean Sea...

 was conquered from the French (and formally ceded in 1763). A proclamation of 7 October 1763 commanded that all governors of the newly acquired colonies were instructed instructions "as soon as the state and circumstances of the said colonies will admit" to call a general assembly. On 9 April 1764, the King (George III) appointed a Governor, General Melville
Robert Melville
Robert Melvill was a Scottish soldier, botanist and inventor. He served as a general in the British Army and was a prominent antiquary....

.

Finally, on 24 July 1764 (before Melville had set sail for Grenada) letters patent
Letters patent
Letters patent are a type of legal instrument in the form of a published written order issued by a monarch or president, generally granting an office, right, monopoly, title, or status to a person or corporation...

 were issued to impose a four and a half per cent duty upon all goods and sugars exported from the island of Grenada, to equalise the duty across the Leeward Islands
Leeward Islands
The Leeward Islands are a group of islands in the West Indies. They are the northern islands of the Lesser Antilles chain. As a group they start east of Puerto Rico and reach southward to Dominica. They are situated where the northeastern Caribbean Sea meets the western Atlantic Ocean...

. Melville arrived in Grenada on 14 December 1764. In 1765 he summoned an assembly.

James Campbell bought a plantation on Grenada. William Hall was a collector of the four and a half per cent duty. Campbell brought a claim to recover from Hall the money he had paid as duty. Campbell claimed that 4½% duty had not been imposed by lawful or sufficient authority.

Campbell succeeded, the decision turning on important constitutional principles.

The law decided

The points of law so decided were, in summary:
  • A country conquered by the British arms becomes a dominion of the King in the right of the Crown; and, therefore, necessarily subject to Parliament
    Parliament of Great Britain
    The Parliament of Great Britain was formed in 1707 following the ratification of the Acts of Union by both the Parliament of England and Parliament of Scotland...

    .
  • The conquered inhabitants once received under the King's protection, become subjects in all respects.
  • The law of a colony equally affects all persons and all property there: a native-born Briton has no privilege distinct from local people.
  • The King has power to make law for the conquered country without the concurrence of Parliament (except that this legislation is subordinate to his own authority in Parliament so that he cannot make any new change contrary to fundamental principles such as exempted an individual from the power of Parliament).
  • Once the King has irrevocably granted a territory a representative assembly to concur in law making, he can no longer legislate by decree or impose taxation without them.

Review of the law of colonies

Most of the text of Lord Mansfield's judgment reaffirmed the authority of the king to make law and impose taxation upon a colony by his own authority. In addition to past judicial pronouncements (of which few were found) he examined historical sources. In particular he found that the sovereign ruled freely by charter and decree in Ireland
Kingdom of Ireland
The Kingdom of Ireland refers to the country of Ireland in the period between the proclamation of Henry VIII as King of Ireland by the Crown of Ireland Act 1542 and the Act of Union in 1800. It replaced the Lordship of Ireland, which had been created in 1171...

 until its own parliament
Parliament of Ireland
The Parliament of Ireland was a legislature that existed in Dublin from 1297 until 1800. In its early mediaeval period during the Lordship of Ireland it consisted of either two or three chambers: the House of Commons, elected by a very restricted suffrage, the House of Lords in which the lords...

 was founded, Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

 until its annexation, Berwick-upon-Tweed
Berwick-upon-Tweed
Berwick-upon-Tweed or simply Berwick is a town in the county of Northumberland and is the northernmost town in England, on the east coast at the mouth of the River Tweed. It is situated 2.5 miles south of the Scottish border....

 until the days of James I
James I of England
James VI and I was King of Scots as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the English and Scottish crowns on 24 March 1603...

 and in Calais
Pale of Calais
The Pale of Calais is a historical region of France that was controlled by the Kingdom of England until 1558.- History :After the Battle of Crécy in 1346, Edward III of England, having renounced the throne of France, kept some territory within France, namely Aquitaine and the area around Calais,...

 until its loss, and that power remained unchallenged in other extant British colonies.

However in contrast Jamaica
Jamaica
Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...

, which had a representative assembly it had been previously decided that a governor could not override a troublesome assembly. Just as in Great Britain the King was restrained by Parliament, the Governor had no power to force laws or taxes on a colony without the consent of its assembly. Only an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain
Parliament of Great Britain
The Parliament of Great Britain was formed in 1707 following the ratification of the Acts of Union by both the Parliament of England and Parliament of Scotland...

 could do that.

The ratio decidendi

Lord Mansfield recognised that the 4½% duty was fair and equitable, even desirable to avoid distorting trade between the Windward Islands. Nevertheless, he ruled it unlawful.

Notwithstanding the crown's wide authority, where a colony has a representative assembly, taxation cannot be imposed without its consent or by Act of Parliament.

In this case the letters patent of 24 July 1764 predated by some months the existence of the assembly. Nevertheless, Lord Mansfield held that the requirement to call the assembly was in the King's proclamation of 9 April 1764. Therefore the King's absolute authority ended on that date, notwithstanding that the assembly had not been called and indeed the governor who was to call it had not even left Britain.

"Through the inattention of the king's servants in inverting the order in which the instruments should have passed and been notoriously published, the last act is contradictory to and a violation of the first, and is, therefore, void."

Other cases citing Campbell v. Hall

Campbell v. Hall has been cited or referred to in several later cases in the British Empire
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...

. Most pointedly it was cited with approval in West Rand Central Gold Mining Company, Limited v. The King, [1905] 2 K.B. 391, a case which concerned the conquest of the Transvaal
South African Republic
The South African Republic , often informally known as the Transvaal Republic, was an independent Boer-ruled country in Southern Africa during the second half of the 19th century. Not to be confused with the present-day Republic of South Africa, it occupied the area later known as the South African...

 and the consequent the extinction of the vanquished state's obligations.

Other consequences of the decision

Campbell v. Hall also called into question the ouster of French law
Civil law
Civil law may refer to:* Civil law , a branch of continental law which is the general part of private law* Civil law , a branch of common law dealing with relations between individuals or organizations...

 in Quebec
Quebec
Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....

 by proclamation in 1763. As a result, the Quebec Act
Quebec Act
The Quebec Act of 1774 was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain setting procedures of governance in the Province of Quebec...

 was passed in 1774 to confirm that French law continued to govern civil matters, but was ousted in favour of English law in criminal matters.

See also

Campbell v. Hall on Wikisource
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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