ABSTRACT
The catalogue of subject matter jurisdiction contained in section 20 of the Senior Courts Act (SCA) and its predecessors is the result of a protracted "turf war" between the Admiralty Court and the common law courts. The statutory heads of jurisdiction created by section 20 of the SCA 1981 must all be read consistently with, and subject to, the Brussels I Regulation and the Lugano II Convention. Section 20 of the SCA 1981 does not create a special jurisdiction outside of the European jurisdictional code which governs when any court has jurisdiction over any particular case. By section 24(1) of the SCA 1981 unless the context otherwise requires, " 'ship' includes any description of vessel used in navigation and includes, subject to section 2(3) of the Hovercraft Act 1968, a hovercraft". The 'navigation' is used to describe the action of navigating or ordered movement of ships on water.
