C.S.O. 4432/26.
942
[No. 30-19.9.31.-3.]
A BILL
INTITULED
Short title.
Repeal of Ordinance No. 5 of 1896, 8s. 2 and 3.
Amendment of Ordinance
No. 5 of 1896, s. 4.
An Ordinance to amend the Suitors' Funds
Ordinance, 1896.
Be it enacted by the Governor of Hong Kong, with the advice and consent of the Legislative Council thereof, as follows:-
1. This Ordinance may be cited as the Suitors' Funds Amendment Ordinance, 1931.
2. Sections 2 and 3 of the Suitors' Funds Ordinance, 1896, are repealed.
3. Section 4 of the Suitors' Funds Ordinance, 1896, is amended :-
(i) by the deletion of the words
Ordinance into effect and ";
'carrying this
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(ii) by the deletion of the word "Treasurer" wherever it occurs and by the substitution therefor in each case of the word "Registrar".
Objects and Reasons.
The principal Ordinance was passed at the request of the Secretary of State, the Marquis of Ripon, in his despatch of the 10th August, 1894, somewhat on the lines of the Suitors' Funds Ordinance, 1891, of the Straits Settlements, under which Court moneys were placed on deposit with the Colonial Treasurer and the Government was made liable to make good all monies so placed on deposit together with interest at the rate of two per cent. per annum. The Straits Settlements procedure is now regulated by appropriate provisions of their Civil Procedure Code.
Sections 2 and 3 of the Suitors' Funds Ordinance, 1896, require that all moneys paid into court should be placed on deposit with the Treasurer and should be paid out by the Treasurer only on the requisition of the Registrar.
Under the existing practice moneys paid into court are paid by the Registrar into the account of the Government at such bank as the Treasurer may indicate and the Treasurer is informed daily of the amount paid in.
When payment out is required the Registrar issues to the intended payee a "Direction" (Form 4 prescribed by the Suitors' Funds Rules, 1928) requiring the Treasurer to pay to the person named therein a specified sum. The payee then takes the Direction to the Treasury where payment is made in accordance with the tenor thereof.