HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL.
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(a) By Clause 2 the Governor in Council is empowered to make rules in connection with inquests and post-mortems.
(b) In respect of deaths of prisoners under sentence, the old provision requiring an inquest to be held in every case within 24 hours (or 48 hours if a "dies non" intervenes) has been relaxed, and is now to apply only to the case of executed prisoners. (Clause 5).
(c) Clause 8 abolishes the discretion of a magistrate acting as coroner to commit direct for trial a person against whom at an inquest evidence of the commission of a crime has been disclosed, and requires the institution of ordinary proceedings before a magistrate as the initial step in every such case.
(d) Clauses 9 and 10 give to the Attorney General similar powers, in particular the power of requiring a magistrate to hold an inquest, to those conferred on the High Court by section 6 of the Coroners Act, 1887.
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:
1. Section 2 of this Ordinance inserts a new section 2 in the principal Ordinance empowering the Governor in Council to make rules, similar to the power exercised in England by the Lord Chancellor with the concurrence of the Secretary of State under section 26 of the Coroners (Amendment) Act, 1926 (16 and 17 Geo. 5, c. 30), on which the section is based.
2. Section 3 of this Ordinance makes a verbal amendment in section 4 of the principal Ordinance, rendered necessary by the appointment of more than two magistrates.
3. Section 5 of this Ordinance substitutes for section 8 of the principal Ordinance a new section, of which sub-section (1), based on section 5 of the Capital Punishment Amendment Act, 1868 (31 & 32 Vict., c. 24), relates to inquiries on the bodies of prisoners who have suffered capital punishment, and sub-section (2), founded on section 3 of the Coroners Act, 1887 (50 & 51 Vict., c. 71), to deaths in prison. Old section 8, which applied to both classes of inquiry, required an inquiry to be held within 24 hours of the death (or 48 hours if a Sunday intervened), but as it has been found impracticable to summon a jury within this period for all inquiries into deaths in prison, the provision has, as in England, been restricted in new section 8 to inquiries on the bodies of executed offenders.
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