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HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL.
FINANCE COMMITTEE REPORTS.
THE COLONIAL SECRETARY, by command of H.E. The Governor, laid upon the table reports of the Finance Committee, No. 8 dated July 25th, 1927, and No. 9, dated August 18th, and moved that they be adopted.
THE COLONIAL TREASURER seconded, and this was agreed to.
ASYLUMS ORDINANCE,
THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL moved the first reading of Ordinance to amend the Asylums Ordinance, 1906."
"An
He said-The main object of this Bill is to surround with greater safeguards the procedure under which persons suspected of being of an unsound mind are sent to asylums for purposes of observation. The intended safeguards are of two kinds. In the first place it is pro- vided that no Order for sending a suspected case of lunacy to an Asylum for observation shall be made until there has been an attempt to communicate with some relative of the patient. In the second place it is provided that an application for the Order under this new Ordinance must be made on a definite statutory form. That will have the effect of producing undoubtedly clearness and accuracy in the application and also in the Order. When persons have to fill up a statutory form, containing definite headings and calling for definite facts, there is much less danger of the Order being made on vague and insufficient grounds. The opportunity is taken to make some other minor improvements in the Ordinance, but that is the main intention of the present Bill.
THE COLONIAL SECRETARY seconded, and the Bill was read a first time.
OBJECTS AND REASONS.
1. The object of this Ordinance is to define more clearly the pro- cedure requisite for the admission of patients into mental asylums, and to ensure, so far as possible, that the removal of a patient to an asylum shall not take place without notice to the patient's relatives.
2. Section 2 of this Ordinance inserts in the principal Ordinance, Ordinance No. 6 of 1906, a new section 4 which gives the Governor in Council power to make regulations for various purposes connected with the objects of the Asylums Ordinance.
3. Section 3 of this Ordinance repeals section 7 of the principal Ordinance and substitutes a new section therefor. The section in question deals with the procedure for removal of a person to an asylum for temporary detention and observation, The principal features of the new section 7 are that it requires both the application, and the order of the magistrate or justice of the peace, to be in a
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