JUSTICE (HONG KONG BRANCH)
3-
Tom Sargant, Esq.
30th May, 1973
(c)
(iii) the Attorney General is the sole arbiter of
the venue for the trial of indictable offences (except for murder, manslaughter, piracy etc., rape and some other offences punishable with life imprisonment), and if he selects the District Court not even the committing magistrate nor the Supreme Court nor Full Court can gainsay him. Unlike the position in England, here at no stage does the accused have any say in how or where he is to be tried.
(v)
(iv) by reason of (i) and (ii) trials invariably
last longer than those in the Supreme Court. legal aid is only available where the accused is charged with an offence carrying a maximum penalty of 14 years' imprisonment or more; in the Supreme Court legal aid is available in all cases.
(vi) verdicts are rarely given at the conclusion of
the trial, but are reserved for many days and sometimes weeks, when all the judge. has got to go on is his note. Invariably, he will have started another trial or a civil action, in the meantime.
(vii) the judges are either "promoted" magistrates or "transferred" prosecutors from the Government's Legal Department.
The Magistrates Courts have the following principal disadvantages:·
(i) there is neither shorthand-writer nor trained
clerk and the same defects as are mentioned in B(i) exist in these courts.
(ii) the defendant never has any advance notice, of
any kind, of the case against him beyond the bare details of the charge.
(iii) he has no right to ask to be tried in the District
Court or by a jury in the Supreme Court.
(iv) there is absolutely no legal aid for offences
tried in these courts although almost any indictable offence may be tried summarily and a single magistrate can impose up to 3 years' imprisonment, shortly to be increased to 5 years'.
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