Hong Kong Case Law: Decisions & Judgments | LexChat

Hong Kong Case Law

Magistrates' court jurisdiction

  • 7 Mar 1991

    ATTORNEY GENERAL v. WAI YAN SHUN

    Citation
    ATTORNEY GENERAL v. WAI YAN SHUN
    Court
    Court of Appeal
    Case number
    CAAR17/1990

    The Court held that given the prevalence of indecent assaults on crowded conveyances and the difficulty of detection the principal sentencing objective is deterrence; accordingly for a first offence immediate imprisonment of 14–28 days should be the normal sentencing option and for a second offence imprisonment of 2–6 months is appropriate, with fines reserved for rare cases and must be scaled to ability to pay. Applying those principles the Court found the $4,000 fine manifestly inadequate but declined to increase the sentence in the particular circumstances of this respondent because he had…

  • 10 Jul 1986

    CHEUNG KAI COMPANY v. COMMISSIONER OF CUSTOMS AND EXCISE

    Citation
    CHEUNG KAI COMPANY v. COMMISSIONER OF CUSTOMS AND EXCISE
    Court
    Court of First Instance
    Case number
    HCMA593/1986

    The hearsay provisions in Part IV of the Evidence Ordinance were not generally in force in Magistrates' Courts under the 1970 commencement notice; section 34(2) of the Import and Export Ordinance does import the hearsay provisions to Magistrates' Court proceedings only for the specific purposes set out in section 34(1), and the proffered statements did not relate to those specified matters; accordingly the magistrate rightly rejected the hearsay statements and his adverse credibility finding stood, so the forfeiture order was correctly upheld.