CO129-548-5 Opium Amendment Ordinance 1934 29-5-1934 - 29-5-1934 — Page 6

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ATTORNEY GENERAL'S CHAMBERS,

Hong Kong, 22nd May

.1934.

REPORT ON ORDINANCE No. ......7...........of 1934.

1.

I have examined the accompanying Ordinance. intituled an

Ordinance to amend the law relating to Opium, and am

of opinion that it is one which is not contrary to

the Governor's instructions.

2. By Section 3 of the Opium Amendment Ordinance,

1933, there was added to Section 15 of the Opium Or- dinance, 1932, a new sub-section (s.s.3), which read

as follows "No person be ing the owner or occupier of

any premises, or having, or acting or assisting in, the

management or control the re of, shall knowingly suffer

any person to use the same as an opium divan."

This provision was a imed mainly at principal

tenants of floors in Chinese tenement houses on which

divans were found, but it failed in its object, since

on appeal by the Crown from the decision of a magis-

trate it was held by the Full Court that the tenant of

such a floor was not the occupier of a portion which

had been sublet by him to another person, and further that

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proof of mere knowledge in such tenant that such portion was

wasEND used as a divan was not enough to make him liable under the

section.

3. The present amendment substitutes for Section 15 of

the principal Ordinance a new section, of which sub-section (1)

re-enacts in different terms the provisions of old section 15

relating to persons who smoke in, keep, or occupy divans, or

as tenants allow their premises to be used as divans, and

in new paragraph (d), which has been framed on the lines of

section 13 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1885, (48 &

49 Vict. c.69), further forbids a landlord or lessor knowingly

to let, or having let to consent to the use of, his premises

or any part thereof as a divan.

Sub-section (2) indicates the scope of the terms "lessee",

tenant", "lessor" and "landlord" used in the section, and

the steps which a lessor or landlord who become s aware that

the premises let by him are being used as a divan must take

in order to discharge his liability under sub-section (1) (a).

4. In my opinion this is an Ordinance to which His

Excellency the Governor may properly assent in the name of

His Majesty and on His behalf.

Je Rosell

Attorney General.

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