LAW AND ORDER
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in Tai Po and Ping Shan, with one magistrate dividing his time between both places. On Hong Kong Island, apart from the regular Magistrates' Courts, there is a Justices of the Peace Court, composed of two Justices of the Peace sitting together five afternoons a week. One of the Justices is usually a solicitor. During the year 13 solicitors and 45 lay Justices rendered valuable service in this Court.
The Magistrates' Courts continued to have a busy year with five courts functioning on Hong Kong Island, four in Kowloon and one in the New Territories. It will be seen from the table of figures below that in Kowloon the courts dealt with substantially more cases than the Hong Kong courts; this must be attributed in part to the growth of population and expansion of industry on the mainland.
Statistics of work in the Magistracies are as follows:
New Territories
Total
Hong Kong Kowloon
Total number of charges
56,051
62,341
7,285 125,677
Total number of defendants
(adult and juvenile)
61,753
115,802
8,748 186,303
Total number of defendants
convicted (adult and juvenile)
57,702
111,422 7,987 177,111
Total number of adult
defendants
58,617 102,546 8,713 169,876
Total number of adult
い
defendants convicted
54,633
98,218 7,956 160,807
Total number of juvenile
defendants
3,136
13,256
35
16,427
Total number of juvenile
defendants convicted
3,069
13,204
31
16,304
Total number of summonses
issued
28,634
47,007
4,394 80,035
While there was a slight decrease, as compared with 1956, in the number of applications made to the Tenancy Tribunals for determination of rent payable, or for approval of agreed rental in excess of the permitted rent, the number of exemption cases again greatly increased. The figures for the past three years are revealing: 639 for 1955, 1,004 for