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31 Com. L. League J. 529 (1926)
International Mixed Court of Shanghai, the

handle is hein.journals/clla31 and id is 531 raw text is: COMMERCIAL LAW LEAGUE JOURNAL THE INTERNATIONAL MIXED COURT OF SHANGHAI By John F. D. Meighen, of Albert Lea, Minn. From a modest beginning in 1864 it has become the most powerful court of first instance in the world. The International Mixed Court at Shanghai determines the controversies of a million people within and near the International Settlement and it determines them finally. It says the last word. There is no appeal from its decisions. No other tribunal, no person, no department of government can grant a new trial or set aside its acts. As to this million of people, its jurisdiction is practically un- limited. The official report of the Mixed Court shows that for the one month of March, 1925, it sen- tenced fifteen persons to death for crimes of vio- lence. During the year 1924 ninety-two received the death sentence and were sent to the arsenal. Some of its money judgments are for millions of taels. Bear in mind that in 1924 Shanghai stood second among the ports of the world in. entrances and clear- ances; its International Settlement has a population exceeding that of entire states such as Maine, South Dakota or Oregon, and is, in many aspects, a free city; it has large manufacturing and commercial in- terests, and litigation is heavy. A morning visit to the Mixed Court finds trials progressing in several court rooms in each of which a native magistrate and a foreign assessor-a yellow native and a white foreigner-are sitting as judges. If the visit chanced to be during Junie or July of 1925, the visitor was impressed by an ominous steel struc- ture, an armored car, at the nearby street corner and by the plentiful fixed bayonets and savage revolvers carried by men in uniform in and about the building. It is not a court where some superannuated bailiff is relied upon to preserve order. Litigation is dis- posed of speedily. Many a court in the United States consumes more time in selecting a jury than the Mixed Court would take for the entire trial. There the judicial machinery is not slowed by constitutional restrictions, providing for jury trials and commanding that no person in a criminal case shall be called as a witness against himself. No oath is administered to a witness, no Bible is kissed, but if, after warning, the witness persists in telling what the magistrate and sitting assessor, con- sider an untruth, they may try him at once, send him to jail if found guilty (which criminal proceed- ing may be finished within half an hour) and then continue the trial of the case in which he was testi- fying. As there are no appeals, exceptions are of no use and a lawyer does not try his case with the purpose of obtaining a reversal in a higher court. At times there are long objections and emphatic protests from the members of the bar during trials, but gossip asserts that most of the protests arise from the de- sire of Chinese clients for a vigorous lawyer, one who speaks -up loudly for his cause and denounces the opposition-in short, they desire a lawyer who can make a noise-a rather natural wish for a race that loves exploding firecrackers and the firing of guns in the air. The lawyers practicing before the Mixed Court, about 200, are of many nationalities, including Chi- nese, British, Japanese, Americ6'n, French, Aus- trian, Portuguese, German, Italian, Spanish and Russian and as a natural result the procedure and practice is a growth containing contributions from different systems of law. Hearsay and opinion tes- timony is admitted quite freely. At the trial of a number of students and others upon a charge of riot- ing, part of the claimed mob into which the munici- pal police fired May 30th this year, I heard the pub- lic prosecutor obtain from his own witness, a mere passer-by, answers to questions like this: Is it rea- sonable to suppose that the crowd increased after you left? and What would have happened if the police had not fired? In some ways that public prosecutor was, quite like his American brother. He dramatically in- formed the court in his opening statement that none of the rioters were shot in the back. A moment later when his first mvdical witness testified that the bul- let hole indicated a bullet had entered from the back, the prosecutor unabashed continued, Might he not just then have turned around urging his fellow riot- ers to follow on ? The prosecutor glared at the de- fendants, a rather bookish-looking student group, and sneered, Ignorant schoolboy! conceited! mate- rials for Bolsheviks! as though that established 'heir guilt. The court administers Chinese law and the local laws of the International Settlement. A son is sued upon a promissory note, which he never signed, never guaranteed, never heard of, but'when the orig- inal note is produced in court showing the original signature of the deceased father made years before the son was born,- judgment is promptly entered. against the son, for Chinese law does not recognize the outlawing of claims and follows the maxim, 'A son pays his dead father's debts. Our many stat- utes of limitation, statutes upon which so many real estate titles rest, are almost unknown in China. The Mixed Court may hold that surviving rela- tives have acted properly in adopting a descendant and heir for a childless decedent without the dead November, 1926

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