HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL.
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Memorandum attached to the Bill in Hong Kong Government Gazette of 8th October, 1909, page 785) to apply section 9 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1885, to proceedings before magistrates as well as on indictment.
SUMMARY OFFENCES ORDINANCE, 1932.
THE ATTORNEY GENERAL moved the first reading of a Bill intituled "An Ordinance to amend and consolidate the law relating to Summary Offences." He said: Sir, I rise to move the First Reading of a Bill to amend and consolidate the law relating to Summary Offences. The principal Ordinance was passed 87 years ago and the amending Ordinances which have been passed in the interval caused in it a loss of cohesion which is corrected in the consolidation. I do not think that there is anything I can add to what is set out in the Objects and Reasons and Table attached to the Bill.
THE COLONIAL SECRETARY seconded and the Bill was read a first time.
Objects and Reasons.
The "Objects and Reasons" for the Bill were stated as follows:--
This Ordinance consolidates and amends the law relating to Summary Offences in the manner indicated in the Table of Correspondence. In particular the following amendments outstanding.
are
Section 4 is new and is based on the provisions of the Scaveng- ing and Conservancy by-laws (Ordinances of Hong Kong, Vol. III p. 1602-5) that govern the conveyance etc., of pig-wash and night- soil. There has always been difficulty in enforcing those by-laws because the police have had no power to arrest offenders. This difficulty will now disappear.
Section 8 is a combination of sections 8 (1) and 21 of No. 1 of 1845, and also includes the main provisions of sections 19, 20, 21, 22, 23 and 24 of the Malicious Damage Ordinance, 1865, (which are repealed by section 32) in respect of damage to trees, etc. The overlapping of the provisions of the two Ordinances is thus got rid of.
Section 21 has been amplified by the inclusion therein of the provisions of the Vagrancy Act, 1824 (5 Geo. 4, c. 83, s. 4) dealing with loiterers and suspected persons, and of section 127 of the Magistrates' Ordinance, 1890.
Section 23 has been transferred from the Magistrates' Ordinance, 1890, in which it was section 93. The various forms of drunkenness dealt with would appear to be essentially summary
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