The subject of this article is the legal issue that arose in a case pending before a court in West Berlin, concerning the hijacking, on 30 August 1978, of a Polish passenger plane (flight 165 of the Polish Airlines from Gdańsk to West Berlin. The problem was the application of the U.S. Constitution in West Berlin, with its guarantee of the participation of a jury in the trial. The dispute also reveals important legal issues, one of which, namely the relationship between the judiciary, in the field of the administration of justice, and the executive, as the authority implementing the policy towards the occupied country, is discussed in detail.