This Amendment has one advantage in that it eliminates one reference to the law of Poland as it was on 1st January, 1945. The hon. Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Bing) asked what was the law of Poland on 1st January, 1945? I am afraid I shall have to take the House into a rather subtle argument which, in my submission, is, nevertheless, a sound one, as to what the law of Poland was on 1st January, 1945, according to our notions now. It may sound a paradox to a layman, but the law in force in Poland on 1st January, 1945, which we would have said was in force in 1945, is not the law of Poland in force in 1945. It sounds absurd, but in my submission it is so. In English law, a question of foreign law is a question of fact, and there have been cases where an English court has found that French law, for instance, founded on Ist March was so and so, and on 1st June has found that exactly the same point in French law was exactly the opposite. That is the first thing. It is a matter of fact.

Let us take the case of a couple coming from France and being married here, and then, later, there being proceedings of nullity. Evidence is given on the question of fact by French lawyers. It is said that this couple did not have the consent of their parents. In French law, French people who marry abroad and do not have the consent of their parents are not married in accordance with French law and hence, the court would say, on 1st January, 1910, that the people were married in England, and that they had not the capacity to be married, because, according to French law, the marriage was nullified. The French law would give a case from the Court of Cassation which is clear on the point. Then, the next year, the Court of Cassation reverses its decision. Take, then, the case of a French couple, married on exactly the same date as the other couple, coming before an English court. The evidence is given about the Court of Cassation having reversed its decision. The question is exactly the same: What was French law on 1st January, 1910? The evidence that is given on French law is that French law has changed. The English court does not say, "What did we think the law of France was on 1st January, 1910?" The English courts are not allowed to do that. They have to say, "What is the evidence of French lawyers now as to what the French law on 1st January, 1910, was?" It is the opposite.

That is the fallacy of this Clause. It is a matter of applying international law. It is a well-known problem, and the technical name is "the classification of law in time." As one would expect, many learned books have been written by German lawyers on it. What happens now? An English court has to decide what was the law of Poland on 1st January, 1945. The Clause says so. The only evidence we can have is the evidence of Polish lawyers. Their evidence must be that the law on 1st January, 1945, is the law which the present Polish law says was in force on 1st January, 1945. The Polish Government, like many refugee Governments, or non-refugee Govern- ments that sprung up in countries that were occupied, were faced with a very difficult legal problem. There had been laws passed in, say, Norway, by the refugee Government and laws passed by the Norwegian Quisling Government, and the Norwegian Government are faced with a difficulty in that they cannot wipe out the whole of the laws passed by the Quisling Government, because that would make legal nonsense of such things as marriages, births, and so on. What they say is that, during the German occupation, this is what the law of Norway was, and they supplement the law passed by the refugee Government by adding a few Quisling laws and one of their own, and they say, not what is the law since the liberation only, but they add that the law of Norway since the occupation was so-and-so.

The Polish Government have done the same thing. They were faced with a more difficult legal problem. There had been German laws of the Gouvernement General, and they say that in 1945 the Polish law was so-and-so. Let me give one more illustration. The Vichy Government passed many laws in France. For instance, they passed a company law. In 1945, the English courts, faced with the question of what was French company law, would have said, "It is French law up to 1940, the day of the occupation by the Germans, or perhaps 1942, the date of the occupation of the unoccupied zone, plus any laws passed by the De Gaulle Government when it was recognised." But in 1947, if they were asked what was the French law in 1945, there would be a very different answer because the French lawyers would have said that the De Gaulle Government did not recognise the Vichy company law but that since De Gaulle went back they have incorporated the Vichy company law. Therefore, the French lawyers in 1947 would be telling the English court what the law was in 1945, and that would be different from what the English court would have been told by the French court in 1945.

That is what is happening here. There can be no other answer to the question in an English court today. Suppose a man complains that he has been imprisoned under the Provisional Government of 1945. If he does he will have an unanswerable argument when he says that the only Polish law in 1945 is the law which the present Polish Govern- ment say was the law in 1945. That touches in the point raised by the hon. Member who spoke before the Attorney General that that law cannot be changed. But it can be changed because the sovereign body in Poland is the present Government and it is they who decide not only what the law is now, but what it was before. We cannot freeze the law as it was in 1945, and then say in 1947 that however much the Poles have changed it, we cannot recognise it. We have got to recognise it, unless the law is altered. Therefore, I do submit that this Clause as it is today cannot work and for that reason it would appear to be desirable to accept the Amendment.