ENG-1961 — Page 240

LAW, ORDER AND RECORDS

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have necessitated the creation of a number of additional courts to deal with the increased volume of business. The Chief Justice is head of the judiciary, and he and four Puisne Judges deal with all business in the Full Court, and in the Supreme Court in all its various jurisdictions. In the District Court there are five District Judges, two of whom sit in Kowloon.

In the past the Magistrate's Court at Tai Po was situated in the District Office building, but during the year a new Magistracy was opened at Fanling Cross Roads to serve the New Territories. It accommodates two court-rooms and is a modern building of impressive design, occupying a prominent position near the main road.

Two other new magistracies at Causeway Bay and North Kowloon are now in full operation. These are also fine buildings of up-to-date design with four court-rooms in the former and five in the latter including, in each case, a Juvenile Court.

The opening of all these new buildings has made possible a better distribution of court work, and there is now a Magistrate's Court reasonably near to the homes of most defendants, witnesses and others concerned. Three magistrates sit at the Central Court, three at Causeway Bay, three at South Kowloon, four at North Kowloon and one at Fanling.

With the rapid expansion of Tsuen Wan as an industrial centre it may be necessary to establish another magistracy to serve that district, and tentative plans are under discussion.

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Figures for criminal cases before the courts indicated some reduction in numbers during the year, largely due to a decrease in minor summonses for hawking offences in Kowloon. It did not, however, produce a corresponding fall in the demands on judicial time. Most defendants in hawking offences plead guilty and their cases are generally brief. They bear little comparison with the more serious offences like drug trafficking. Such cases are tending to increase owing to the special efforts of the Police and the Preventive Service to stamp out the traffic in drugs, and the trials are usually lengthy. The overall figures for serious crime which caused most work for the courts are given in Appendix IX.

When the District Court was established in 1953, it took over the Summary Jurisdiction previously exercised by the Supreme

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