Background
In July 2023, Mr Francis applied under the Registered Land Ordinance 1980 to rectify St Helena’s Land Register, claiming that he had acquired ownership by 15 years of peaceable, open and uninterrupted possession without permission. The disputed parcel was registered as Crown land. The Crown objected that Crown land could not be acquired by prescription.
The Registrar referred that preliminary question to the Supreme Court of St Helena, which held that Crown land could be acquired by prescription. The Court of Appeal reversed, reasoning that section 159 of the Ordinance protected interests conferred on the Crown by other written laws and therefore prevented prescription from affecting land assumed to have vested in the Crown under section 112 of the Saint Helena Act 1833. It did not determine whether section 112 actually vested this particular land in the Crown.
The Court’s Holding
The Privy Council allowed Mr Francis’s appeal and held that Crown land in St Helena can be acquired by prescription under Part IX of the Ordinance. It rejected a literal reading of section 159 that would protect the Crown’s ownership of land acquired by statute from the Ordinance’s prescription provisions.
Construed purposively, section 159 primarily preserves non-registrable statutory interests, rights and powers held by the Crown in relation to land owned by others. Crown ownership itself—whether acquired by statute or otherwise—falls within the Ordinance’s registration system and receives only the protection that system provides. A broader interpretation would undermine the conclusiveness of the Torrens-style register, require difficult historical inquiries into how Crown land was acquired, arbitrarily distinguish between Crown land based on its source of title, and substantially diminish section 160’s rule that the Ordinance binds the Crown. Section 31 of the Constitution also posed no obstacle because prescription changes what property the Crown owns rather than the Governor’s power to dispose of property that remains Crown-owned.
The Board answered the Registrar’s question affirmatively and remitted the matter to the Registrar for determination. It did not decide whether Mr Francis had satisfied the factual requirements for prescription, whether section 112 of the 1833 Act conferred title, or whether the disputed land fell within that provision.
Key Takeaways
- Crown land in St Helena is capable of acquisition by 15 years of qualifying possession under section 135 of the Registered Land Ordinance 1980.
- Section 159 preserves principally non-registrable statutory rights and powers of the Crown over third-party land; it does not exempt Crown ownership from the Ordinance’s land-registration and prescription regime.
- The ruling resolves only the preliminary legal question, leaving the Registrar to decide the merits of Francis’s prescription claim.
Why It Matters
The decision confirms that St Helena’s Torrens-style register governs Crown ownership regardless of whether the Crown originally obtained the land by statute or another means. Courts should not interpret a general savings clause in a way that makes registered title depend on uncertain historical evidence or creates an unstated exemption from prescription.
The judgment also preserves prescription’s role in securing settled possession and keeping land marketable, while making clear that any special protection for Crown land must be expressed coherently within the statutory scheme.