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Legal Practitioners (Amendment) Bill
Following is the speech by the Attorney General, the Hon Jeremy Mathews, in moving the second reading of the Legal Practitioners (Amendment) Bill 1996 in the Legislative Council today (Wednesday):
Mr President,
I move that the Legal Practitioners (Amendment) Bill 1996 be read the second time. The Bill introduces a local appointment system for notaries public in Hong Kong. It provides a statutory basis for the existing practice whereby only solicitors admitted in Hong Kong are appointed as notaries public. It also establishes the criteria and procedures for the appointment of notaries public.
The functions of a notary public in Hong Kong, as in other common law jurisdictions, are primarily to attest, authenticate or certify the due execution of documents and to take oaths and declarations in respect of documents for use in other countries.
Under section 40 of the Legal Practitioners Ordinance, the Registrar of the Supreme Court is required to register every notary public who produces his notarial faculty and who files in the High Court an affidavit of identity and pays the enrolment fee. In practice, all notaries public in Hong Kong are solicitors who have been granted notarial faculties by the Archbishop of Canterbury in England. At present, the Archbishop does not grant notarial faculties to applicants from Hong Kong without the prior approval of the Chief Justice. The applicants also have had to sit and pass a notarial examination organised by the Master of Facilities (who is a High Court Judge) in England. These arrangements, however, have no statutory basis.
The Bill provides new arrangements for examining and appointing applicants as notaries public in Hong Kong. Firstly, it amends the Legal Practitioners Ordinance to give the Chief Justice power to appoint as notaries public solicitors admitted in Hong Kong who are of at least 7 years' standing and who have passed a qualifying notarial examination. Second, it empowers the Chief Justice to set the qualifying examination and to remove from registration, suspend, restore and lift a suspension in respect of a notary public. Third, it specifies the powers of notaries public. Fourth, it provides for the continued keeping of a Hong Kong Register of Notaries Public. Fifth, it preserves the professional position of persons who are notaries public in Hong Kong immediately before the commencement day of this Bill if enacted. Finally, I should make clear that the Bill does not affect the notarial powers of consular officers under the Consular Relations Ordinance.
End
Mr President, I commend this Bill to this Council.