4 Maritime Liens (and ‘other Charges’)

4.01 Although confidently described by Sir John Jervis in The Bold Buccleugh 1 as ‘simple and intelligible’, the law of maritime liens is in significant respects far from straightforward. Difficulties arise, as Brandon J put it in The Halcyon Skies,2 ‘because of the history of Admiralty jurisdiction’, and remain potentially significant over 165 years after Parliament first intervened to ease the jurisdictional pressure on the High Court of Admiralty. This is despite the availability for all practical purposes of statutory rights in rem in all cases in which...