Friday, May 11, 1973
The aim of these conditions is to make it clear that preventive
detention will only be used as a last resort, when all other forms of
punishment have failed to protect society against a person who has, in
effect, become a professional criminal.
The Bill provides that a sentence of preventive detention will
be in addition to any sentence imposed for the offence of which the accused
has last been convicted.
In order to reduce the very large number of cases being tried by the Supreme Court and District Court, it is also proposed to arrange for more indictable offences to be triod summarily before magistrates' courts.
Provisions for this are made in the Magistrates (Amendment) Bill 1973 which seeks to empower the Chief Justice to appoint permanent magistrates as Principal Magistrates.
These will be magistrates of considerable experience and who will
have greater power of punishment.
Under this Bill, they will be able to impose a maximum sentence
of four years' imprisonment and a fine of 110,000, as against the two years' imprisonment and $10,000 fine which can be meted out by a permanent magistrate.
The maximum aggregate total of consecutive sentences that can be imposed, which is at present three years for permanent magistrates, will be increased to five years for Principal Magistrates.
It is also intended that some of the more serious cases presently tried in the Supreme Court should be tried in the District Court.
To enable
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