Jurisdiction of the Court of Appeal

We turn finally to the question whether this Court has jurisdiction to grant leave to appeal and to hear appeals from the Royal Court in relation to decisions of HM Procureur under the Investigation Law of 1991. We have already concluded that such an appeal would have been within the jurisdiction of the Cour des Jugements et Records, the predecessor of this Court in civil matters.

However if it remains correct that the Court is to be guided by the approach to the identification of a "criminal matter" established in Amand -V- Home secretary [1943] AC 147 as followed in the later English cases to which this Court made reference in century we remain satisfied that such an appeal as the present would be categorised as a "criminal matter" in England, and not as a "civil matter" as for example in In re o (Restraint Order) [1991] 2QB 520 CA.

Repeating a passage from the judgment of this Court in Century:

"Some further assistance is to be derived from the English authorities which are concerned with the meaning of "criminal cause or matter" in English statutes. As has been recognised in Amand -v- Home Secretary [1943] AC 147 and leading up to carr -v- Atkins [19871 3 WLR 529 and Re o (Restraint order:Disclosure of assets) [above] , in English Law the nature of the matter, criminal or otherwise, has to be treated as dependent on the nature of the act sought to be impugned or questioned and not on the means which the person complaining adopts to protect his private right."

When invited to depart from our previous decision we were referred to the legislative history of the Appeal Law of 1961. This commenced with the Suggestions and Recommendations of the Royal Court in relation to Judicial Reform which formed part of Billet d'Etat XVIof 1946, debated on the 26th June, 1946, and which recommended the setting up of a Court of