213745-1934-Supplementary-Draft-Bill--Asylums-Amendment — Page 1

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LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL.

Draft Bill.

No. S. 416.-The following bill is published for general information :—

Short title.

Substitution for Ordin- ance No. 6 of 1906, s. 15 (2).

Amendment

of Ordin- ance No. 6 of 1906,

s. 15, s.s. 3 and 4.

A BILL

INTITULED

(No. 46-5.11.34.-1.7

An Ordinance to amend the Asylums Ordinance, 1906.

BE it enacted by the Governor of Hong Kong, with the advice and consent of the Legislative Council thereof, as follows:

1. This Ordinance may be cited as the Asylums Amend- ment Ordinance, 1934.

2. Sub-section 2 of section 15 of the Asylums Ordinance, 1906, is repealed and the following sub-section is substituted therefor

(2) If any person who has been imprisoned under any sentence of imprisonment, or who is otherwise lawfully detained in any prison or house of detention, is, in the opinion of the Medical Officer of the prison or house of detention, as the case may be, in which such person is confined, of unsound mind or likely to become of unsound mind, the Governor may by warrant under his hand order such person to be removed to an asylum and to be detained there until the expiration of his sentence or period of detention or until further order.

3. Sub-sections 3 and 4 of section 15 of the Asylums Ordinance, 1906, are amended by the insertion of the words "or period of detention" immediately after the words "the expiration of his sentence" in each sub-section.

Objects and Reasons.

1. Section 15 (2) of the principal Ordinance (as enacted by section 8 of the Asylums Amendment Ordinance, 1927) provided only for the committal by order of the Governor to an asylum of prisoners under sentence who were certified by the prison Medical Officer to be of unsound mind.

2. Remand prisoners, detention prisoners and persons committed to the house of detention as vagrants were thus left outside the scope of this provision, as well as prisoners and persons detained who showed signs of insanity but could not be definitely certified as insane.

3. The present Bill remedies these defects.

C. G. ALABASTER,

Attorney General.

November, 1934.