Enclosure 2.
285
2
ATTORNEY GENERAL'S CHAMBERS,
Hongkong, 3rd October, 1922.
REPORT ON ORDINANCE
No. 20 of 1922.
1.
I have examined the accompanying Ordinance intituled an Ordinance to amend the law relating to evidence and to the ad- ministration of cathe, and I am of opinion that the Ordinance is one which is not contrary to the Governor's Instructions.
The
The
2. In a recent robbery case at the Criminal Sessions the two chief witnesses for the Crown, the woman who was robbed and her husband, were missing when the caee came on for trial. police had failed to find them at their former address when they went to remind the witnesses of the day of the trial. police sscertained that the two witnessee had left Hongkong be- oause they had been threatened with death if they remained. The husband had sold his business and the purchaser was produced The Chief Justice refused to allow the deposi- at the trial. tions of the two witnesses to be read under section 29 of Ordi- narce No. 2 of 1869, apparently on the ground that that section could not be relied upon unless there was definite evidence that the witnesses were actually out of the Colony, even though the section provides the alternative ground of the impracticability