LAU SZE-YAN AND ANOTHER v. THE QUEEN

CACC000571/1976

 

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF HONG KONG

(Appellate Jurisdiction)

 

CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 571 OF 1976.

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BETWEEN
	LAU Sze-yan	Appellants
	CHAN Kam-shing
	and
	The Queen	Respondent

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Coram: Mr. Justice Yang in Court.

Date of Judgment: 18 June 1976.

 

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JUDGMENT

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1. I would dismiss the appeal.

2. It has been argued on behalf of the appellants that had the casino in question been licensed under the Gambling Ordinance, it would have been a perfectly legal establishment and that there is no general prohibition of gambling in our law. The purpose of a provision for licensing under Section 13 of the Ordinance is to ensure sufficient control by the police over the gambling establishment for which a licence has been obtained. The appellants' casino was not subject to such control as is intended by the Ordinance. It was operated, as the learned magistrate so rightly said, in deliberate ambitions and impudent defiance of the lar.

3. The learned magistrate referred to the difference between the ordinary type of keepers in law who are usually humble managers of the gambling house, and the appellants whom he describes as keepers in law as well as in fact. Whilst there is no legal distinction between a keeper in law and a keeper in fact, what the magistrate is really saying played is that the role played by the appellants is quite different from that played by the usual sort of keepers who come before the magistrates' courts every day. He is therefore drawing a distinction purely for the purpose of sentence, and in my view it is a legitimate distinction.

4. The Appellants' clients are members of the so-called upper class, who, it is said, can afford the high stakes they choose to gamble with. I do not see this as a factor in mitigation. In my view the culpability is not very much different whether appellants' clients were humbler persons playing smaller stakes or wealthy persons resorting to high stakes.

5. The magistrate has carefully considered the facts and the appellants' clients record. I agree with everything said by him in his Reasons for Sentences.

6. For these reasons I dismiss the appeal.

  

  

	...(illegible)
	T.L. Yang
	Judge of the High Court.
	18.6.76

  

Representation:

Mr. Oswald Cheung, Q.C., with Mr. Patrick Yu and Mr. Ming Huang for Appellants.

Mr. E. Soh, C.C. for Respondent.