38285-1914-Supplementary-Bills-read-a-first-time--Foreign-Marriage — Page 1

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No. S. 53.--The following Bills were read a first time at a Meeting of the Council held on the 26th February, 1914 :—

Short title.

Amendment

of section 2 of Principal

Ordinance.

Date of

A BILL

ENTITLED

An Ordinance to amend the Foreign Marriage

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 Foreign Mar- riage Ordinance, 1914, and shall be read and construed as one with the Foreign Marriage Ordinance, 1903, (herein- after called the Principal Ordinance), and this Ordinance and the said Ordinance may be cited together as the For- eign Marriage Ordinances, 1903-1914.

2. Section 2 of the Principal Ordinance is hereby amended by the deletion of the figure and words "3 con- secutive weeks" in the fifth line thereof and by the sub- stitution therefor of the words one week".

3. This Ordinance shall come into operation on the 23rd

coming into day of March, 1914. operation.

Objects and Reasons.

By the Foreign Marriages Order-in-Council, 1913, pro- mulgated on the 22nd November of that year certain regulations are prescribed under the provisions of the Foreign Marriage Act, 1892, relating to the marriage of British subjects outside the United Kingdom. This Order- in-Council will be published shortly in the Gazette of this Colony.

These regulations are intended to facilitate the perform- ance of the contract of marriage by British subjects outside the United Kingdom and come into force on the 23rd March, 1914, from and after which day certain earlier Orders-in-Council, namely, the Foreign Marriages Order- in-Council, 1892, the Foreign Marriages Order-in-Council, 1895, and the Foreign Marriages Order-in-Council, 1903, are repealed.

These earlier Orders-in-Council and the new Order-in- Council of 1913 require in some small respects local legislation of reciprocal character and to meet the require- ments of the earlier Orders-in-Council the Foreign Marriage Ordinance, 1903, was passed in this Colony.

By clause 11 of the new Order-in-Council, 1913, it is provided inter alia that a law enacted by the legislature of any part of His Majesty's Dominions outside the British Islands shall be deemed to give effect to the regulations contained in the Order or to unrepealed or future Orders- in-Council under the Foreign Marriage Act if it makes provision for the execution of certain formalities. These formalities with one exception are already provided for by our Foreign Marriage Ordinance, 1903,

This excep-

tion is that in the Order-in-Council of 1913 the duration of the period of abode immediately preceding the notice of a marriage intended to be solemnized under the Foreign Marriage Act which must be given by one of the parties intending such marriage is fixed at one week instead of, as formerly, at three weeks.

Section 2 of the local Foreign Marriage Ordinance, 1903, fixes such period at three weeks, which, as stated above, was the period prescribed under the Orders-in- Council repealed by the new Foreign Marriages Order-in- Council, 1913, and this Bill is now introduced in order to make the necessary alteration.

JOHN A. BUCknill, Attorney General.