Administration des Habous v Deal

• Jurisdiction: Marruecos
• Docket Number: 67
• Date: 12 November 1952
• Court: Court of Appeal (Morocco)

Morocco, Court of Appeal of Rabat.

Case No. 67

Administration des Habous

and

Deal.

International Law — Relation to Municipal Law — Binding Force before Municipal Courts of Decisions of the International Court of Justice.

Aliens — Treatment of — Regime of Capitulations — American Nationals in Morocco — Jurisdiction — Exemptions and Limitations upon — Foreign Nationals in Morocco — International Law — Relation to Municipal Law — Binding Force of Decisions of the International Court of Justice.

The Facts.—In January 1952, the appellant had brought an action before the Juge des référés at Casablanca for the eviction of the respondent, an American national, from the Garage Habous at Casablanca which the latter had rented for a period of two years, expiring in December 1951. The Juge des référés declared himself incompetent on the ground that American nationals in Morocco were not subject to the jurisdiction of the French courts. It was now contended by the appellant that American nationals in Morocco were subject to the jurisdiction of the French courts.

Held: that the French courts had jurisdiction with regard to a dispute involving a Moroccan national on the one hand and an American national on the other, in which the American national was unable to invoke a special jurisdictional privilege in the circumstances denned by the International Court of Justice on August 27, 1952. The Court said:

“According to the terms of the Judgment of August 27, 1952, of the International Court of Justice, concerning the Rights of United States Nationals in Morocco,1 the United States are entitled, by virtue of the provisions of the Treaty concluded between the United States and Morocco in 1836, to exercise their consular jurisdiction with respect to all civil and criminal disputes between American citizens and protected persons in the French Zone of the Shereefian Empire. No similar privilege exists with regard to civil or criminal actions instituted against American nationals, except in cases specially provided for in the Act of Algeciras, and in particular Articles 19–29, 49, 59, 86–102 thereof, which do not apply to the present case. In respect of disputes which are not subject to the consular jurisdiction of the United States, American nationals are subject to the local courts.

“In Morocco there have always been, side by side, three types of courts, which had jurisdiction respectively over three groups of persons, individuals or bodies corporate, who, by virtue of...