[757] Some authors, however, plead for an abrogation of this rule. See Martens, II. § 16.
[758] A case of this kind occurred in 1904 in the United States. Mr. Gurney, Secretary of the British Legation at Washington, was fined by the police magistrate of Lee, in Massachusetts, for furiously driving a motor-car. But the judgment was afterwards annulled, and the fine imposed remitted.
Privileges of Private Servants.
§ 403. It is a customary rule of International Law that the receiving State must grant to all persons in the private service of the envoy and of the members of his legation, provided such persons are not subjects of the receiving State, exemption from civil and criminal jurisdiction.[759] But the envoy can disclaim these exemptions, and these persons cannot then claim exemption from police, immunity of domicile, and exemption from taxes. Thus, for instance, if such a private servant commits a crime outside the residence of his employer, the police can arrest him; he must, however, be at once released if the envoy does not waive the exemption from criminal jurisdiction.
[759] This rule seems to be everywhere recognised except in Great Britain. When, in 1827, a coachman of Mr. Gallatin, the American Minister in London, committed an assault outside the embassy, he was arrested in the stable of the embassy and charged before a local magistrate, and the British Foreign Office refused to recognise the exemption of the coachman from the local jurisdiction. See Wharton, I. § 94, and Hall, § 50.
Privileges of Family of Envoy.
§ 404. Although the wife of the envoy, his children, and such of his near relatives as live within his family and under his roof belong to his retinue, there is a distinction to be made as regards their privileges. His wife must certainly be granted all his privileges in so far as they concern inviolability and exterritoriality. As regards, however, his children and other relatives, no general rule of International Law can safely be said to be generally recognised, but that they must be granted exemption from civil and criminal jurisdiction. But even this rule was formerly not generally recognised. Thus, when in 1653 Don Pantaleon Sà, the brother of the Portuguese Ambassador in London and a member of his suite, killed an Englishman named Greenway, he was arrested, tried in England, found guilty, and executed.[760] Nowadays the exemption from civil and criminal jurisdiction of such members of an envoy's family as live under his roof is always granted. Thus, when in 1906 Carlo Waddington,[761] the son of the Chilian envoy at Brussels, murdered the secretary of the Chilian Legation, the Belgian authorities did not take any step to arrest him. Two days afterwards, however, the Chilian envoy waived the privilege of the immunity of his son, and on March 2 the Chilian Government likewise agreed to the murderer being prosecuted in Belgium. The trial took place in July 1907, but Waddington was acquitted by the Belgian jury.
[760] The case is discussed by Phillimore, II. § 169.
[761] See R.G. XIV. (1907), pp. 159-165.
Privileges of Couriers of Envoy.