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4. Section 5 of this Ordinance makes in section 7 of the principal Ordinance an amendment which is not strictly necessary but which will be a useful reminder of the fact that medical practitioners have to take out an annual certificate under the Stamp Ordinance, 1921. Section 21 of the Stamp Ordinance, 1921, provides that, inter alios, a medical practitioner is not entitled to recover any fees unless
(a) he was in possession of a valid certificate to prac- tise at the time when the cause of action arose,
or
(6) he is at the time of judgment in possession of a certificate covering the time when the cause of action arose.
5. Section 6 (2) of this Ordinance repeals section 13 (4) of the principal Ordinance. This sub-section is no longer necessary as the new section 18 to be enacted by section 10 of this Ordinance gives to the applicant for registration a right to appeal against the decision of the Board if they refuse to register him. The new sub- section requires the applicant for registration to furnish the Medical Board with an address to which all notices can be sent, and requires a notice of the decision of the Medical Board to be served on the applicant at that address.
6. Section 7 of this Ordinance repeals section 14 of the principal Ordinance and substitutes a new section which deals with all the powers of the Medical Board with regard to striking off or censure. It will be seen below that section 10 of this Ordinance enacts a new section 18 in the principal Ordinance which deals solely with the appeal to the Governor in Council and omits the references to the powers of the Medical Board which appear in sec- tion 18 of the principal Ordinance. The new features in the new section 14 are as follows.
7. The Medical Board is given power to censure. scems obvious that this power might be of great use in keeping up the standard of the profession, as a case might clearly call for censure but not for striking off.
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8. Section 14 of the principal Ordinance gives power to strike off a registered practitioner who has been cou- victed of any felony or misdemeanour". The meaning of the term misdemeanour is not quite clear. Some author- ities, (e.g., Russell) treat it as including all offences below the rank of felony, while others, (.g., Halsbury and Kenny) regard it as applying only to indictable offences below the rank of felony. If the term has the wider meaning, the expression "felony or misdemeanour" in- cludes all offences, except, perhaps, piracy jure gentium, and there seems to be no reason why the single word offences "should not be used instead. If on the other hand, the term nisdemeanour does not include offences punishable only on summary conviction, it seems prefer- able to use the word "offence in this section, because there may be purely summary offences, eg., illicit dealing in opium, which would justify considering the question of striking off a registered practitioner. The new section 14, therefore, uses the single word "offence ".
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9. The Medical Board is given direct power to strike off, subject of course to an appeal to the Governor. The section in the principal Ordinance merely provides for a report from the Medical Board to the Colonial Secretary.
10. The Medical Board is expressly given the right to publish the result of any inquiry held under this section, either with or without an account of the proceedings. Without express statutory power publication of a censure or of the proceedings at an inquiry might conceivably lay the members of the Board open to a claim for damages for libel.
11. Sub-section (3) of the new section 14 gives the Medical Board power to strike off any person who obtained registration by fraud or misrepresentation, and any person who was not, at the time of registration, entitled to be registered. With regard to the latter part of the preced- ing sentence, it is possible to imagine a case of registration by mistake without any fraud or misrepresentation.
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