1953-HKRS30-8-43_Part01 — Page 55

obedience

and ob- struction.

Regulations do not confer any

rights upon pernittees of land SOVC 3*

expressly provided.

Repeat.

G.NA.

242/48.

by that officer or person and by other persons acting by direction, and that officer or person and any other persons so acting may use all force reasonably necessary for the exercise of that power.

(4) Any person who-

(a) wilfully disobeys a requirement, notice or direction made or given by any officer or person in the exercise of any power he may exercise by reason of sub-regulation (1);

or

(b) resists or obstructs such officer or person in the exercise

of such power,

shall be guilty of an offence and shall on conviction be liable to a fine of five thousand dollars and to imprisonment for one year.

11. For the avoidance of doubt it is hereby declared that nothing in these regulations shall be deemed to confer upon a permittes of land held on permit from the Crown any power or right other than is expressly provided herein and that nothing in these regulations and nothing done hereunder shall be deemed to constitute a waiver by the Crown of the breach of any condition of any permit on which land is held or to limit any power or right of the Crown or its officers to cancel any such permit for breach of any condition thereof or for any other fawful cause.

12. The Public Health (Sanitary Provisions) Regulations, 1948, are repealed.

il

(b) restriction of the conditions under which clearances could be effected to matters affecting public health, whereas the prevention of fire and promotion of orderly development were of almost equa] importance; and

(c) the absence of any power to remove persons as well as structures. All these defects are remedied in the new regulations, which give the competent authority power to remove equallers, trespassers and üzlawful structures from Crown land, and to require lessees and permittees to da the same on leased land and land held on permit, and in default of action by a lessee or permittee, to carry out the removal charging the leases or permittes for the cost thereof. There is also power to take such measures as may be necessary to prevent re-crection of unlawful structures, or reoccupation by squatters of land once cleared.

"Squatter" has not been defined in the regulations because it lạ đ well-known legal term which has been interpreted judicially as “a person who has taken possession of a piece of land and occupied it by buildings or by cultivation, and hse, by so taking posession of it, asserted a right to it".

(Secretariat 3/4802/53)

COUNCIL CHAMBER,

29th December, 1953.

Explanatory Nole.

Huich

Clerk of Councils.

(Thia mode te mot part of the regulations but is intended to indicate their genéral purport).

These regulations replace the Public Health (Sanitary Provisions) Regulations, 1948, and improve the machinery for squatter clearance, IN the light of experience which has shown up several defects in the existing provisions.

The three principal defects were-

(*) the absence of a single controlling authority, the Deputy Director of Health Services, Director of Public Works and Commissioner of Police being given parallel powers:

1