CO129-379 - Governor Sir Lugard - 1911 [8-9] — Page 181

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originally passed, followed this form of alternative penalty. By Ordinance No.3 of 1687, penal servitude was abolished, and in- prisonment with hard labour substituted for it. In the Ordinances as they appear in the Revised Edition, "imprisonment with hard la- bour" has been substituted for "penal servitude"; but no further change was made, with the result that the alternatives became "im- prisonment with hard labour for not more than 14 and not less than 8 years" and "imprisonment with or without hard labour for not more than 2 years". This is meaningless and the Ordinance eliminates the second alternative. It should be noted that the penalty of "impri- sorment with or without hard labour" as an alternative to penal servitude has been eliminated in England, but by a different process

A further effective change is made by making the penalty of imprisonment always subject to the discretionary "with or without hard labour" (as it is in fact in the majority of cases) unless any Ordinance expressly provides otherwise. This is made to apply to future enactments, and will make the drafting of Ordinanc

uniform.

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It is not proposed that the Ordinance should come

into force until the Council has sanctioned the New Edition as the

authoritative version of the Ordinances of the Colony.

C.

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Attorney General.

The superfluous words "at the discretion of the

Court" and "on conviction thereof" are eliminated.

The result of these changes so far as mere revision

is concerned will be to reduce the bulk of the criminal laws of 1865, by at least one-third. But the more important result will be

to let each offence clearly appear, and to condense the penalty clauses as much as possible, leaving them to be governed by the general principles laid down by this Ordinance.

Solitary confinement is a prison disciplinary mea- sure and it is unusual for it to be put within the province of the Court to impose it as part of the original sentence; it has been absolete as a court sentence for years and it has consequently be decided to delete the words "with or without solitary confinement wherever they occur. This has been done with the concurrence of Police and Prison authorities.

Three other clauses have been introduced, sectiong

{

10 and 11, which deal with old, cumbersome, and out of date ex-

pressions, substituting therefor modern formulas.

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