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HONG KO
LEGAL REPORT
THE IMMIGRATION (AMENƊNENT) ORDINANCE 1980
(No. 15 of 1980)
Enclosure No. 2
The main object of this Ordinance is to widen the existing powers and functions of senior immigration assistants and immigration assistants (all of whom are referred to in the Immigration Ordinance as immigration assistants) by conferring upon them some of the existing powers and functions of members of the Immigration Service of or above the rank of assistant immigration officers (referred to in the principal Ordinance as immigration officers). This will allow the Immigration Department an increased degree of flexibility in the deployment of staff to cope with the greatly increased demand for immigration facilities, and increases in the number of immigration control points and volume of travellers passing through there points. The immigration assistants will be concerned with the more routine administration of the Imigration Ordinance, such as the examination of persons arriving in Hong Kong, the grant of permission to land, and other related functions.
2. This object is achieved principally by the amendments to various sections of the Immigration Ordinance effected by section 10. The amendment in section 8(a) confers upon immigration assistants powers of search and seizure but the new subsection (14) În section 8(b) reserves the existing powers of arrest, entry and search of premises to immigration officers. The existing power to refuse
ermission to land is also reserved to immigration officers (Schedule, section 11(1), amendment (b)).
3. The Ordinace also transfers to the Secretary for Security certain povers that were formerly vested in the Governor and the Chief Secretary, since the Secretary for Security is more directly concerned in the administration of the relevant provisions of the Ordinance,
4.
Section 7 amends section 37X(2) of the principal Ordinance to provide that a certificate that a person, who is charged with an offence of transporting unauthorized entrants, was the owner or captain of the ship involved, should be related to the date of the alleged offence.
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