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3. The Jury Ordinance, 1887, throws on the Legis- lative Council the whole duty of selecting the special jurors. The bill provides that the list of special jurors shall be compiled in the first instance by the Registrar. The Registrar will be guided as to the number of names to be included in the list of special jurors as the bill provides for a certain maximum. This maxi- mum may be altered by the Governor in Council from time to time. The list of special jurors will be finally settled by the Governor in Council, and in settling the list the Governor in Council will not be bound by any previous order made by hini with regard to the maxi- mum number of names to be included.
4. As the date on which the two lists for any parti- cular year are to be brought into use is no longer rigidly fixed by Ordinance the bill provides that the lists brought into use in any particular year shall continue in force until the lists settled in the following year are brought into use.
5. The above changes are made by clauses 3 and 4 of the bill. Clause 7 of the hill is a temporary pro- vision to the effect that the lists brought into use on the 1st day of March, 1929, shall continue in force until the new lists settled in 1930 are brought into
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6. The bill amends the principal Ordinance in cer- tain other minor points also.
7. Clause 2 amends section 4 of the Jury Ordinance, 1887, on the two following points. In the first place it makes an addition to paragraph (2) which is in- tended to make it clear that members of the Hong Kong Police Reserve are not to be exempt from jury service. In the second place, it omits the reference to dissent in paragraph (8), because it has been objected that the word dissent is inappropriate where there is no established religion.
8. Section 10 of the Jury Ordinance, 1887, pro- vides, inter alia, that a jury panel must be drawn by the Deputy Registrar in the presence of the Registrar. This might be inconvenient, and accordingly clause 5 amends section 10 of the Jury Ordinance, 1887, by providing that the panel may be drawn either by the Registrar or by a Deputy Registrar.
9. Section 24 of the Jury Ordinance, 1887, pro- vides, inter alia, that if a jury has not returned its verdict before all the other cases for trial at the same session "have been disposed of and when it sufficiently appears" that the jury cannot agree, the jury is to be discharged and a new jury to be empanelled. The word "session" is not entirely free from doubt, but even if it means only a day's sitting, a case may easily arise where it would be unnecessary to wait to the end of the day before being sure that the jury could not agree. Again, it may be doubtful when the point of time is reached which is described by the words of the section “(when) all the other cases for trial at the same sitting or session have been disposed of “. For example, two cases might be down for hearing on a particular day and only one might be disposed of on that day, or neither case might be finished on that day. Accordingly clause 6 of the bill alters the word "or" to "and in the passage quoted at the beginning of this paragraph. The result will be that the court will have power to discharge a jury at any time when satisfied that the jury cannot agree upon a verdict.
J. H. KEMP,
Attorney General.
10th April, 1929.
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