311098-1941-Supplementary-Draft-Bill--Magistrates-Amendment — Page 2

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(4) The magistrate may order the defendant in default of compliance with any order made under this section to be imprisoned without hard labour for any term not exceeding six months.

3. Form No. 21 in the First Schedule to the Magistrates Amendment Ordinance, 1932, is amended-

(a) by the insertion of the words manual labour," after the word

thereto; and

>>

appear

CC

of Form No. 21 in First Schedule to

or to perform Ordinance in the heading

(b) by the substitution of the words or to perform

days' manual labour within

days or to be of

good behaviour" for the words "or to be of good behaviour" within the brackets in the twelfth line thereof.

No. 41 of 1932.

Objects and Reasons.

Section 30 of the Magistrates Ordinance, 1932, was taken from section 16 of the Summary Jurisdiction Act, 1879 (42 and 43 Vict. c. 49). That section was repealed and replaced by section 1 of the Probation of Offenders Act, 1907 (7 Edw. 7, c. 17). Clause 2 of the bill is an adaptation of the section from the later English Act which gives wider powers to the magistrate of releasing an offender on probation.

There is one important difference between clause 2 of the bill and the corresponding English section in that power is given in the bill to the magistrate to make it a condition of release that where the offender is a male he must do manual labour for a period not exceeding 14 days to be performed within a reasonable length of time.

Thus in a suitable case a man may be ordered to do such useful work as stone-breaking at any quarry.

It is hoped that this may in a small measure help to reduce the prison population at Stanley Gaol.

Clause 3 makes a consequential amendment in the form of the recognizance.

C. G. ALABASTER,

Attorney General.

October, 1941.