HONG KONG
LEGAL REPORT
Enclosure No. 2
THE DOMESTIC VIOLENCE ORDINANCE 1986
(No. 48 of 1986)
This Ordinance, which is broadly based upon sections 1 and 2 of the Domestic Violence and
Matrimonial Proceedings Act 1976, empowers the District Court and, in urgent or appropriate cases, the High Court to grant an injunction on the application of a party to a marriage
(a)
(b)
to restrain the other party from molesting the applicant or a child living with the applicant;
to exclude the other party from the matrimonial home or any part thereof, or from a specified area ("exclusion order");
(c) to require the other party to allow the
applicant to occupy the matrimonial home ("occupation order").
Power is also given to enable a power of arrest to be attached to an injunction. The relief will also be available generally in the case of a man and a woman who are unmarried but cohabiting, although an exclusion order, an occupation order and an order to attach a power of arrest will only be available where the court is satisfied that the relationship is sufficiently permanent.
This requirement of permanency is one that does not exist in the 1976 Act.
2. The Ordinance differs from the Domestic Violence and Matrimonial Proceedings Act 1976 in the following further respects
(a)
-
the power to grant any relief under this Ordinance is dependent upon proof of, at least, molestation; this makes clear the matter
assumed by Scarman L.J. in Richards v Richards 19837 2 ALL E.R. 807 at 8197