IOR/R/15/1/295-313

During the 19th century the British Residents in the Persian Gulf had received authority for the judicial aspects of their administrative duties through various ad hoc pieces of legislation, including, in 1873, appointment of Residents and their Assistants as Justices of the Peace by the Bombay Government. However, the extra-territorial jurisdiction of the Resident, as Consul-General over British subjects in Persia, was not regularly established and defined until The Persian Coast and Islands Order in Council, 1889, which placed the jurisdiction on a legal basis and subjected the Resident in criminal and civil matters to the supervision of the High Court of Bombay. This was followed by the establishment of a number of Consulates and Vice Consulates on the Persian side of the Gulf, for instance at Bandar Abbas.

On the Arabian side, the Resident's consular authority was limited to Muscat, where the Agent had held the Consular Commission since 1841. However, extra-territorial jurisdiction was exercised in each of the Agencies under the authority of the Foreign Jurisdiction Acts, which empowered the Crown to establish courts of justice and legislate for the categories of persons subject to jurisdiction by means of Orders in Council. The various Orders in Council subsequently issued for each of the Agencies made provision for a Full Court, a Chief Court, and a Court of first instance for each district. The Political Resident was Judge of the Chief Court, while the Political Agents, who as members of the Indian Political Service, would be expected to have had some judicial experience, were Judges of the Court of first instance in their own districts. As Judge of the Chief Court, the Resident was normally only concerned with appeals.

Judicial business became an increasingly important part of the work of Residents and Agents. The Political Agent's Court at Bahrain was particularly busy, and by 1944 the Agent was complaining that his assistant was occupied for at least one whole day trying cases.

Political Agents were asked to submit information on the number and nature of the civil and criminal cases dealt with in their courts and to register numbers of British subjects and other persons under their judicial authority. This was often done in the form of Annual Reports.