ENG-1951 — Page 96

VIII

LEGISLATION

During the year forty-three Ordinances were enacted, and certain provisions of the Emergency (Principal) Regulations, 1949, made under the Emergency Regulations Ordinance, 1922, were brought into force. The legislation of the year has again very largely been of an amending character; no fewer than twenty-one Ordinances enacted this year have been Amendment Ordinances, and some thirteen Ordinances have been repealed.

The work of general law revision, commenced in 1948, culminated in the publication of the Laws of Hong Kong (Revised Edition 1950) which came into force on the 1st November this year. The Revised Edition of the Ordinances and of the Subsidiary Legislation is contained in eleven volumes. Volumes VII to XI of the Edition contain the Subsidiary Legislation enacted under the Ordinances contained in Volumes I to V, 'while Volume VI contains both Ordinances and Subsidiary Legislation. The revision has taken the form of a series of chapters numbered seriatim, each containing the complete law on the subject treated, the chapters being so arranged as to include in one volume all chapters on cognate subjects, thus abandoning the chronological method followed in all previous revised editions of the Laws of Hong Kong.

The Protection of Women and Juveniles Ordinance, 1951, which repeals the Protection of Women and Girls Ordinance, 1938, strengthens the protection already afforded to women and girls, but, as its name implies, also affords protection to juvenile males. Since the establish- ment some three years ago of the new Social Welfare Office within the general framework of the Secretariat for Chinese Affairs it has become increasingly obvious that there were a number of gaps and anomalies in the old legislation for the protection of women and girls. A careful scrutiny has also been made of all relevant International Conventions to which the British Commonwealth is a party, in order to insure that Hong Kong is carrying out faithfully its moral and legal obligations to the world. The intention of this new legislation is to insure that Hong Kong continues to meet those obligations, to extend the protection of the law to male juveniles, as well as to women and girls, and to remove other gaps or practical difficulties created by the old legislation.

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