To what extent should the master of a ship be made criminally liable for offences committed by others on board his vessel? This question was posed by Mr R. M. Dunning in a recent article entitled “Man and Superman”.1 The point that Mr Dunning was making was that the present policy of the legislation, or at least of the courts that interpret the legislation, appears to be to impose criminal sanctions upon masters which in some circumstances they are not physically capable of complying with. In some sensitive areas, such as oil pollution and rabies control, a master is made absolutely liable for any offence committed by any person on board his ship. In addition, there are various offences involving ship safety where the legislation in unambiguous language imposes offences of absolute liability. However, there is at the present time a trend, no doubt promoted by the best of motives, to make masters criminally accountable for various offences committed by others on board their vessels even though they themselves are totally blameless. It is questionable whether this was something intended by the legislation involved or rather something initiated by courts of law consisting of people with little or no knowledge of the practicalities and problems of ship management. It is a generally held layman’s belief that if something goes wrong on board a ship the master “carries the can”. The result has been that courts have applied their own standards as regards the behaviour, responsibilities and duties expected of ships’ masters. Recent cases indicate that masters may now find themselves guilty of serious criminal offences as a result of the acts or defaults of others for which they are morally blameless.

Mr Dunning emphasised this problem by reference to the Collision Regulations and in particular to r. 10 of the Regulations relating to separation zones. While statute2 states that a master is only responsible for a breach of the Collision Regulations if caused by his “wilful default” courts have nevertheless found masters guilty in circumstances where the technical breach was committed by a properly qualified and instructed officer who happened to be taking the watch at the time. The view seems to have been taken that a master is to be considered as actively in command of his vessel

24 hours of each day and that if the master delegates the navigation of the vessel to a properly qualified officer he may in circumstances be considered to be in default of his duty. While such a view might have been reasonable in the days of small sailing vessels, it hardly seems realistic in the modern age when one is dealing with supertankers carrying large complements of highly trained officers.