XN000022-1972-07-06 — Page 1

P.A.H. 7 (REVISEDI

4000001

HONG KONG FRAMENT INFORMATION SERVICES

DAILY

INFORMATION BULLETIN

Thursday, July 6, 1972

MORE CHINESE TO BE USED IN LOWER COURTS

The law in Hong Kong is to be amended to allow wider use of Cantonese

in Magistrates' Courts and quasi-judicial bodies of comparable rank.

It will be left to the discretion of the presiding officer to decide

whether Cantonese, English or both, should be used in the spoken part of the

proceedings.

This and other recommendations made by the Chinese Language Committee

in its Third Report have been accepted in principle by the Government.

A government spokesman said today that according to judicial

statistics for the year 1969-70, more than 96 per cent of all the cases heard

in Hong Kong courts were dealt with in the Magistracies.

"The implementation of this recommendation is a significant step forward

in the use of Chinese in the courts," he said,

Other recommendations accepted in principle by the Government include

the following:

Explanatory booklets in Chinese of the more important ordinances should continue to be prepared and published;

A glossary of legal terms should be compiled in Chinese and English;

A list of titles together with a brief description of existing ordinances and subsidiary legislation should be prepared and published in Chinese;

/* Pleadings