608
THE HONGKONG GOVERNMENT GAZETTE, 16TH JUNE, 1888.
Sudden or violent deaths.
(is V. e. 12. 4.17)
Deaths in
Orol d
executions
(1 of 61. 27)
Panel for Jary.
(7 of 68, 4)
Summoning Juries.
(7 of 68, 5: 11 of 64, 22.)
(7 of 6, 4.)
Procedure with a Jury.
Frocedure. (31 V. c. 24. 8. 5.)
Adjourn -
menis. (7 of 68, 6.)
Powers of Magistrate.
Turide. (45 and 4 V.
2. 19. x, 2. 4. )
preliminary external examination thereof, and report in writing to the Magistrate, who may, if he considers it necessary, order an autopsy, the medical officer making which shall further report to the Magistrate on the cause of death.
6. Whenever any person shall die suddenly, or by accident or violence, or wider suspicious circumstances, or whenever any dead body shall be found within the Colony or shall be brought into the Colony, the Magistrate may, if he considers an enquiry to be necessary, enquire into the cause of death of such person without a jury, or if he shall think fit with a jury of three persons as hereinafter provided, and (in his discretion) with or without view of the body, and may detcrmine the cause of death. and make such order with regard thereto as he shall consider necessary. Such enquiry may be held notwithstanding that the cause of death did not arise within the Colony.
2. Whenever any prisoner shall die in Gaol, and whenever any person shall suffer capital punishment, the Magistrate shall within 24 hours (or 48 hours if a Sunday intervene) with a jury of three persons as hereinafter provided, view the body and enquire into the cause of death, and may mike such order in relation thereto as he may consider necessary,
8. Whenever a Magistrate shall require a jury under Section 6 or 7, the Registrar of the Supreme Court shall, on receipt of a requisition from such Magistrate, draw from the Common Jurors Ballot Box for the year the names of six jurors to form a panel, which panel the Registrar shall transmit to the Magistrate. All the provisions of The Jury Consolidation Urdinaure, No 18 of 1887. shall apply, as far as may be, to such drawing, in the same manner as if the jurors were required for a common jury in the Supreme Court.
9. The Magistrate's clerk shall, before the holding of any enquiry under this Ordinance at which a jury may be necessary, issue forms of Summous according to the form in the Schedule hereto, requiring the attendance of the jurors drawn, and every such Summons shall be personally served upon or left at the usual place of abode of the juror so summoned. Any juror failing without reasonable excuse to attend at such enquiry or at any adjournment thereof shall be liable to a fine not exceeding twenty-five dollars, which may be recovered in a summary way before a Magistrate, but the Magistrate before whom the juror is required to attend may remit such fine if he sec fit so to do. The Magistrate shall select the three jurors required from the panel by ballot, and may, if necessary, require any bystander to serve as a juror, but up officer of the Gaol or prisoner confined therein shall serve as a juror in any such enquiry.
10. The Jury required by the foregoing section may be sworn or declared according to the form of oath or declaration provided in the Schedule hereto, which may be administered to two or more Jurors at once.
11. Whenever an enquiry is made under this Ordinance with a jury it shall be the duty of the Magistrate making such enquiry to record in writing the finding of the jury and the duty of the jurors to sign the same. In cases under section 7 it shall be the duty of the Magistrate to Furnish to the Superintendent of the Gaol a copy of the finding of the jury sigued by him.
12. The Magistrate may adjourn any enquiry from time to time, and may, if he consider it necessary, use the same jury for a second enquiry.
13. The Magistrate shall have, in relation to the enquiries provided for in sections 6 and 7 the same powers in all respects as he possesses or may possess in relation to any other proceedings taken before him, and may, at the con- clusion of any such enquiry, commit any person for trial at the Supreme Court without further proceedings before himself or any other Magistrate.
14. The Magistrate shall not order the interment of the body of any person otherwise thau in some public cemetery within the Colony, and in the ordinary and customary manner in which persons of the same nationality are com- mouly, interred, provided always that this section shall not be so construed as to require the performance of any religious rite at the interment of the body of any person buried by order of a Magistrate under this Ordinance; or to alter the laws and usages relating to religious ceremonies at the burial of such persons,