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ATTORNEY GENERAL'S CHAMBERS,
Hong Kong, 22nd May
.1934.
REPORT ON ORDINANCE No. ......7...........of 1934.
1.
I have examined the accompanying Ordinance. intituled an
Ordinance to amend the law relating to Opium, and am
of opinion that it is one which is not contrary to
the Governor's instructions.
2. By Section 3 of the Opium Amendment Ordinance,
1933, there was added to Section 15 of the Opium Or- dinance, 1932, a new sub-section (s.s.3), which read
as follows "No person be ing the owner or occupier of
any premises, or having, or acting or assisting in, the
management or control the re of, shall knowingly suffer
any person to use the same as an opium divan."
This provision was a imed mainly at principal
tenants of floors in Chinese tenement houses on which
divans were found, but it failed in its object, since
on appeal by the Crown from the decision of a magis-
trate it was held by the Full Court that the tenant of
such a floor was not the occupier of a portion which
had been sublet by him to another person, and further that
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proof of mere knowledge in such tenant that such portion was
wasEND used as a divan was not enough to make him liable under the
section.
3. The present amendment substitutes for Section 15 of
the principal Ordinance a new section, of which sub-section (1)
re-enacts in different terms the provisions of old section 15
relating to persons who smoke in, keep, or occupy divans, or
as tenants allow their premises to be used as divans, and
in new paragraph (d), which has been framed on the lines of
section 13 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1885, (48 &
49 Vict. c.69), further forbids a landlord or lessor knowingly
to let, or having let to consent to the use of, his premises
or any part thereof as a divan.
Sub-section (2) indicates the scope of the terms "lessee",
tenant", "lessor" and "landlord" used in the section, and
the steps which a lessor or landlord who become s aware that
the premises let by him are being used as a divan must take
in order to discharge his liability under sub-section (1) (a).
4. In my opinion this is an Ordinance to which His
Excellency the Governor may properly assent in the name of
His Majesty and on His behalf.
Je Rosell
Attorney General.
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