CO129-300 - Administrator Major Gen Gascoigne Governor Sir Blake - 1900 [7-9] — Page 40

>

C

COPY.

C.0.

25607

EN CLOSURE

2

•

& 38 *? 6 AUG 00

ATTORNEY GENERAL'S OFFICE,

June 29th. 1900.

Report on Ordinance No. 16 of 1900.

I have examined the accompanying Ordinance,

}

}

entitled

An Ordinance to further amend The Magistrates

Ordinance, 1890, (No. 10 or 1890).

and I am of opinion that the Ordinance is one which is not

contrary to the Governor's Instructions.

The 4th. Schedule to the Magistrates Ordinance contains a List of offences excluded from Summary Jurisdiction. Experience

has shown that it is not desirable, in Hongkong, to include

in such List. "Every offence which is committed within the

Jurisdiction of the Admiralty" I am inclined to think that by Section 686 of the Imperial Merchant Shipping Act. 1894,

Jurisdiction is conferred on the Magistrate to deal with the

cases therein mentioned, for Part XIII of the Act applies to Hongkong (see Section 712) and the definition of "Court" includes "a Magistrate" See Section 742.

If so, the

The

Magistrates Ordinance, 1890, must be read as subject to the later Imperial Act, and the Schedule no longer applies to some offences within the jurisdiction of the Admiralty.

Magistrate has always dealt with the offences committed in the

land-locked waters of the Colony such as the Harbour, although, in such cases "the Jurisdiction of the Admiralty is concurrent

with that of the Courts of Common Law" (See Sir James F.

Stephen's Digest of the Law of Criminal Procedure, Article 74).

The