High Court of Kerala has rejected the Italian Government's plea that Indian courts has no jurisdiction to try the case as the incident happened in waters beyond India territorial waters. High Court also observed that the killing of the fishermen were cruel and brutal and that the marines do not enjoy any sovereignty and they have acted on their own.
However impartial and just our courts may be, this issue of jurisdiction should be settled by an international body than a court of either of the country. In the case of Jayalalitha the case was shifted to Karnataka so that the trial and judgement will be independent. Similarly in case of the case of massacre of innocent Muslims the case was shifted to Maharashtra. Since here this case is between two nations viz. India and Italy this issue of jurisdiction should be settled by a third country acceptable to both the countries or by a UN recognized international body.
In this case of jurisdiction is the question of whether the killing of the fishermen was brutal or cruel is, in my layman's mind , of any relevance. Here it is only the question of jurisdiction.
As regards the sovereign immunity of the marines, they should have whatever rights they have on duty this time also they should have. They were put on the ship by the Government of Italy for the protection of the ship. Whatever acts they do is as the soldiers assigned to perform their duties. Whether they were on a naval ship or merchant ship is immaterial. The question who are they and whether they are on duty. If they were on a holiday the cannot have any immunity as then they are ordinary citizen.
I have not seen the whole judgment and written this only seeing the newspaper report.
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