Admiralty Courts. The Admiralty Court (whose functions are now exercised by the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division of the High Court of Justice, constituted in 1873-5) was created to try and decide maritime causes. Formerly, the maritime courts of England were divided into the Instance Court and the Prize Court—separate tribunals, though usually presided over by the same judge; the Prize Court existed only during time of war. The jurisdiction in question of booty of war, and the distribution thereof, was in 1865 conferred on the Admiralty Court; and jurisdiction relating to the attack and capture of pirates is vested in the court in this country, and in the vice-admiralty courts in the colonies and foreign possessions. The proceedings of the Admiralty Court, like those in the ecclesiastical courts, were originally based on the civil law, and upon this account it was usually held at Doctors' Commons. But it is merely as the basis of the earlier mercantile codes, such as the Rhodian laws and those of Oleron, and by no means exclusively, that the civil law is of authority in these courts. Questions of the utmost nicety in the law of nations fall to be decided by maritime courts in time of war. The appeal from the Admiralty Court, which was originally to the king in Chancery, is now to the Court of Appeal created by the Judicature Act of 1873-5. Appeals from the vice-admiralty courts in British colonies and dependencies formerly lay to the Admiralty Court in England, but are now carried to the Court of Appeal. The civil jurisdiction of the Admiralty Courts now extends generally (and the county courts also exercise part of it) to disputes between part-owners of a ship, suits for mariners' and officers' wages, suits for pilotage, suits on bottomry and respondencia bonds, and relating to salvage, wreck, collision of ships, &c. County courts are expressly prohibited from entertaining questions of prize, questions arising under the act for the suppression of the slave-trade, or questions of Admiralty jurisdiction by way of appeal. In criminal matters, the Admiralty Court formerly took cognisance of piracy and other offences on the sea, or on the coasts beyond the limits of any county, and, concurrently with the common law courts, of certain felonies committed in the main stream of great rivers below the bridges. This criminal jurisdiction is regulated now by the Criminal Law Consolidation Acts generally; and the criminal jurisdiction of the Admiralty Court may be regarded as obsolete. There is a separate Court of Admiralty in Ireland. The Admiralty Court of Scotland has been abolished, and its ordinary jurisdiction transferred to the Court of Session, the Court of Justiciary, and the sheriffs; questions of prizes, captures, condemnations, and the like, being vested exclusively in the Admiralty Division of the High Court in England.
In the United States, the court of original Admiralty jurisdiction is the United States district court. From this court causes may be removed, in certain cases to the circuit, and ultimately to the supreme court. The jurisdiction of Admiralty has been extended beyond that of the English Admiralty Court. Its civil jurisdiction extends to cases of salvage, bonds of bottomry, respondencia, seamen's wages, seizures under the law of imposts, navigation or trade, cases of prize or ransom, charter-parties, contracts of affreightment between different states or foreign ports, contracts for conveyance of passengers, contracts with material men, jettisons, maritime contributions and averages, pilotage, surveys of ship and cargo, and generally to all damages and trespasses occurring on the high seas. Its criminal jurisdiction extends to all crimes and offences committed on the high seas, or beyond the jurisdiction of any country. Courts of Admiralty, within the limits of their jurisdiction, resemble courts of equity in their practice and modes of proceeding, but are even more free from technical rules.