Say the ratio out loud before you open Reasoning — recalling it unprompted is exactly what the exam pays for.
Why it matters
Sovereign immunity is the question whether a foreign State can be sued at all, and this case marks the starting point of the movement the paper traces. It is an honestly short chapter: what the course establishes is the rule the case stands for, not its facts.
Facts
This course cites the case for the rule of absolute immunity and does not set out its facts. Do not supply any.
Held
The older rule of absolute sovereign immunity: a foreign State was immune from the jurisdiction of the forum's courts, without distinction between the kinds of act complained of.
Reasoning
The rule follows from the equality and independence of States. A court that entertained a suit against a foreign sovereign would be sitting in judgment on that sovereign, and no distinction was drawn between acts done in a governmental capacity and acts done in trade.
Exam use
It opens: Trace the development of sovereign immunity — as the first half of a two-case sequence.
The second half is Trendtex Trading Corporation v. Central Bank of Nigeria, which moved English law to restrictive immunity, confined to governmental as against commercial acts. The movement is from status to function: immunity attaches to what the State was doing, not to the fact that it is a State. In England the matter is now regulated by the State Immunity Act 1978, which withholds immunity where the State submits, and for commercial acts, contracts made or performed in England, employment contracts in England, and torts arising in England.
Give the Indian position, which is entirely statutory. It is governed by s. 86 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, the United Nations (Privileges and Immunities) Act, 1947 and the Diplomatic Relations (Vienna Convention) Act, 1972. Section 86(1) bars a suit against the Ruler of a foreign State except with the consent of the Central Government certified in writing by a Secretary, the object being to protect the foreign State from harassment and frivolous litigation. Immunity may be waived, and waiver may be presumed from conduct — Kenya Airways v. Jinibai B. Keshwala — but waiver in a previous suit is not waiver in a subsequent one.
Keep it apart from two neighbouring doctrines. Immunity is about whether a State can be sued; recognition of expropriatory legislation is about whether its laws are given effect, which is where The Rose Mary belongs; and the act of State doctrine is a third thing that this course does not state.
It does not decide anything that remains the law in England, the restrictive theory and the 1978 Act having superseded it.