HOMICIDE ORDINANCE

HOMICIDE ORDINANCE

LAWS OF HONG KONG

HOMICIDE ORDINANCE

CHAPTER 339





CHAPTER 339.

HOMICIDE.

To make amendments to the law relating to homicide.

[10th May, 1963.]

1. This Ordinance may be cited as the Homicide Ordinance.

2. (1) Where a person kills another in the course or furtherance of
some other offence, the killing shall not amount to murder unless done
with the same malice aforethought (express or implied) as is required for
a killing to amount to murder when not done in the course or
furtherance of another offence.

(2) For the purposes of subsection (1), a killing done in the course
or for the purpose of resisting an officer of justice, or of resisting or
avoiding or preventing a lawful. arrest, or of effecting or assisting an
escape or rescue from legal custody, shall be treated as a killing in the
course or furtherance of an offence.

3. (1) Where a person kills or is a party to the killing of another, he
shall not be convicted of murder if he was suffering from such
abnormality of mind (whether arising from a condition of arrested or
retarded development of mind or any inherent causes or induced by
disease or injury) as substantially impaired his mental responsibility' for
his acts and omissions in doing or being a party to the killing.

(2) On a charge of murder, it shall be for the de fence to

prove that the person charged is by virtue of this section not liable
to be convicted of murder.

(3) A person who but for this section would be liable, whether as
principal or as accessory, to be convicted of murder shall be liable
instead to be convicted of manslaughter.

(4) The fact that one party to a killing is by virtue of this section
not liable to be convicted of murder shall not affect the question-
whether the killing amounted to murder in the case of any other party to
it.

4. Where on a charge of murder there is evidence on which the jury
can find that the person charged was provoked (whether by things done
or by things said or by both together) to lose his self-control, the
question whether the provocation was enough to make a reasonable
man do as he did shall be left to be determined by the jury; and in
determining that question the jury shall take into account everything
both done and said according to the effect which, in their opinion, it
would have on a reasonable man.





5. (1) It shall be manslaughter, and shall not be murder, for a person
acting in pursuance of a suicide pact between him and another to kill the
other or be a party to the other killing himself or being killed by a third
person.

(2) Where it is shown that a person charged with the murder of
another killed the other or was a party to his killing himself or being
killed, it shall be for the defence to prove that the person charged was
acting in pursuance of a suicide pact between him and the other.

(3) For the purposes of this section, 'suicide pacC means a
common agreement between two or more persons having for its object
the death of all of them, whether or not each is to take his own life, but
nothing done by a person who enters into a suicide pact shall be treated
as done by him in pursuance of the pact unless it is done while he has
the settled intention of dying in pursuance of the pact.

6. Where by virtue of section 3 of the Offences against the Person
Ordinance sentence of death is pronounced, it shall be to the effect
only that the prisoner is to 'suffer death in the manner authorized by
law'.

7. The provisions of this Ordinance shall not have effect in relation
to any offence in respect of which an indictment has been signed before
the commencement of this Ordinance but, subject thereto, such
provisions shall have effect in relation. to offences committed wholly or
partly before the commencement of this Ordinance in like manner as
they apply to offences committed thereafter.
Originally 16 of 1963. Short title. Abolition of 'constructive malice'. 5 & 6 Eliz. 2 c. 11, s. 1. Persons suffering from diminished responsibility. 5 & 6 Eliz. 2 c. 11, s. 2. Provocation. 5 & 6 Eliz. 2 c. 11, s. 3. Suicide pacts. 5 & 6 Eliz. 2 c. 11, s. 4. Form of sentence of death. [cf. 5 & 6 Eliz. 2 c. 11, s. 10.] (Cap. 212.) Past offneces. [cf. 5 & 6 Eliz. 2 c. 11, s. 16.]

Originally 16 of 1963. Short title. Abolition of 'constructive malice'. 5 & 6 Eliz. 2 c. 11, s. 1. Persons suffering from diminished responsibility. 5 & 6 Eliz. 2 c. 11, s. 2. Provocation. 5 & 6 Eliz. 2 c. 11, s. 3. Suicide pacts. 5 & 6 Eliz. 2 c. 11, s. 4. Form of sentence of death. [cf. 5 & 6 Eliz. 2 c. 11, s. 10.] (Cap. 212.) Past offneces. [cf. 5 & 6 Eliz. 2 c. 11, s. 16.]

https://oelawhk.lib.hku.hk/items/show/3283

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