Murray-Aynsley, Singapore CJ:

The circumstances which bring this matter before the Court are explained in the judgment appealed against.It is not, I think, necessary to set them out at length.The first question is whether the status of the appellant is such as to oust the jurisdiction of this Court.If that question is answered in the affirmative, the other question arises as to whether he has submitted to the jurisdiction.

In order to obtain information on the first point letters were addressed to the Secretary of State for the Colonies.The answers thereto are set out in the record.It is conceded that the terms of the answers are not such as to constitute an answer in the affirmative as were the answers in the cases of Mighell v. Sultan of Johore [1894] 1 QBD 149 and Duff Development Co. v. Kelantan Government [1924] AC 797.It was argued on behalf of the respondents that unless the appellant, on whom lies the burden of establishing his status, can produce evidence of recognition of his status by His Majesty's Government he has not discharged that burden.That means that the question of status cannot be ascertained by the examination of treaties or constitutions or such documents, that it is not a question of the powers and authority of the person whose status is examined but the extent to which it is recognized by His Majesty.And of that recognition a statement made on behalf of His Majesty is the only form which the Court will notice judicially.

Since the Kelantan case the affirmative proposition that a recognition of sovereignty by His Majesty's Government is conclusive is fully established.It has to be established that the converse proposition that the Courts cannot treat any government as sovereign and independent unless it is so recognized by His Majesty's Government is also law. I should have thought that as a matter of reason and expediency that must be the case.It is also, in my opinion, supported by authority.Among the older cases the City of Berne v. The Bank of England 9 Ves Jun 347 seems to me to be entirely in point; so does Thompson v. Barclay 6 LJ OS Ch 93. In the former Lord Eldon said that it was extremely difficult to say, a judicial Court can take notice of a Government, never authorized by the Government of the country.In the latter Shadwell, VC, said "the Courts cannot acknowledge them till the Government of the country has recognized them". It appears to me that it can make no difference whether it is the recognition of a new government set up by a revolution or the recognition of the status of an established government.The authority to the contrary is Yrisarri v. Clement 2 C & P 101.This was only a nisi prius case and in my opinion cannot be regarded as law in so far as it purports to decide that the Courts can treat a body as a government of a country when not so recognized by His Majesty's Government.Roche J ignored it though it was cited. I think he was right.

The modern practice in this matter dates from Mighell's case. There Lord Esher said at p. 158:

When once there is an authoritative certificate of the Queen through her minister of state as to the status of another sovereign, that in the Courts of this country is decisive.

Kay, LJ, said at p. 162:

Proceeding as it does from the office of one of the principal secretaries of state, and purporting to be written by his direction, I think it must be treated as equivalent to a statement by Her Majesty herself, and, if Her Majesty condescends to state to one of her Courts of Justice, that an individual cited before it is an independent sovereign, I think that statement must be taken as conclusive.

In Foster v. Globe Venture Syndicate [1900] 1 Ch 811, Farwell LJ, reasoned in the same way.Since then all these cases have been decided in this way and with the possible exception of Statham v. Statham [1911] P 92 no case has occurred in which a plea of this kind to the jurisdiction has been allowed except on the strength of a letter from the Secretar