22598-1911-Supplementary-Bills-read-a-first-time--Flogging-Amendment — Page 1

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LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL.

No. S. 94. The following Bills were read a first time at a Meeting of the Council held on the 20th April, 1911 :-

Short title and con- struction.

Amends

section 3 of the l'rincipal Ordinance.

Repeals section 4 of

the Princi al Ordinance

and sub- stitues another

section.

A BILL

ENTITLED

An Ordinance to amend the Flogging Ordinance,

1903.

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

1. This Ordinance may be cited as The Flogging Amendment Ordinance, 1911", and it shall be read and construed as one with the Flogging Ordinance, 1903, here- inafter called “the Principal Ordinance”.

2. Section 3 of the Principal Ordinance is hereby amended by the addition after the figures 1865" in sub- section (5) thereof of the words “sections 44 and 45 of the Offences against the Person Ordinance, 1865; ".

3. Section 4 of the Principal Ordinnuce is hereby re- pealed and the following section is substituted therefor :-

* 4.—(1.). In the case of any crime made punishable under section 31 of the Larceny Ordinance, 165, where the punishment of flogging, is awarded by the Supreme Court on an offender whose age exceeds sixteen years the following provisions shall have effect:--

(.) the sentence shall prescribe the uum- ber of strokes to be inflicted;

(5.) the number of strokes shall not ex- ceed twenty-four and the instrument used shall be either the instrument commonly known as the cat' or else a birch, as the Court, in its sentence, may specify;

(c.) the flogging shall be iflicted pri- vately in prison" and witatu six months of the

sentence.

(2.) In all other cases where the punishment of flog- ging is awarded by the Supreme Court or by a Magistrate the following provisions shall

have effect: --

(.) the sentence shall prescribe the num- her of strokes to be inflicted :

(6.) in the case of an offender whose age does not exceed sixteen years the number of strokes shall not exceed twelve ;

(c.) in the case of any other offender the number of strokes shall not exceed twenty- four;

(d.) the flogging shall be inflicted with a birch on the breech, privately, in prison and within six months of the sentence."

Objects and Reasons.

This Hill has been submitted to and sanctioned by the Secretary of State for the Colonies. It anthorises the infliction of the birch in the case of offences against the two sections of Ordinance No. 2 of 1865 which deal with kidnapping in its most serious forms, and it authorises the infliction of the "cat" in cases which fall within the section of Ordinance No. 5 of 1865 dealing with robbery with violence.

C. G. ALABASTER, Attorney General,