Panama Maru passengers freed when a judge strikes down the exclusion orders

Who: 56 passengers whom immigration officers called "Hindus", many probably Sikhs, according to Pier 21, the Canadian Museum of Immigration. Their lawyer was J. E. Bird, the judge was Chief Justice Gordon Hunter of the Supreme Court of British Columbia, and the immigration superintendent was W. D. Scott.

What: The Panama Maru, a Japanese liner of the Osaka Shosen Kaisha line, reached Victoria on 17 October 1913. Ten passengers landed at once and seven more the next day after showing earlier Canadian domicile, which left 39 held. A Board of Inquiry sat at Victoria, and Scott wrote that he would time the Minister's dismissal of the appeals so the men could be deported before they reached the local courts. Bird went to the Supreme Court for writs of habeas corpus. It tested the continuous journey order of 8 January 1908 and the $200 order that went with it.

Hunter first said the court was concerned only with validity, not good faith, and then found technical flaws in both orders. The continuous journey order used wording that did not match the Act and could reach people of British race, and the $200 order said "Asiatic origin" where the Act said "Asiatic race". On 24 November 1913, according to Pier 21, he ruled both orders invalid and released all 39.

The accounts differ. Wikipedia dates the ruling to 28 November and says the orders against 35 of the 39 were quashed, with four applications withdrawn. South Asian Canadian Heritage names Justice Dennis Murphy as the judge and says the case was dismissed. Pier 21 draws on departmental records and names Hunter, and this account follows it.

Ottawa moved at once. On 25 November Scott asked for an order, PC 2642, barring all artisans and labourers from entering any British Columbia port, which Pier 21 calls a racial exclusion in effect although it named no race. The Department of Justice advised against an appeal, and the orders were redrafted as PC 23 and PC 24 of 1914, which Wikipedia dates to 7 January 1914.

Where: Victoria, British Columbia, in Canada, at the port, the Board of Inquiry and the Supreme Court.

Why it mattered: It showed that the exclusion of Indians rested on orders that could be beaten in court. Wikipedia says news of the ruling led Indian residents to urge others to come before the rules changed again. When the Komagata Maru reached Vancouver in 1914, Bird challenged the new versions of the orders and lost; Pier 21 says more than 350 passengers were deported.