(6) Section 11. As the contravention of this Section is made an offence under Section 33, the words "such action will be regarded as an attempt to defraud the revenue seem unnecessary and it would be safer to omit them.
11
(7) Section 13. In this Section and in Section 33(6) the Master of a vessel is required on arrival to deliver a manifest of his cargo In Section 15 the cargo is required to be checked in one of the copies of the manifest." If more than one copy of the manifest must be produced, Sections 13 and 33 require amendment.
(8) Section 27. The table of charges con tained in Schedule C appears to be relevant to this Section. If so, it is desirable to insert a neforence to it and a sentence has been added for that purpose.
(P. R's draft) (9) Section 32
Is not this adequately covered by Section 6 and could it not therefore be omitted?
(10) Section 32 - end. The draft Ordinance sub mitted by the Political Resident purports to give the Director of Customs powers to try offences and impose penalties. This may be all right so far as persons within the jurisdiction of the Sheikh's courts are con cerned but, although under Article 85 of the Bahrain Order-in-Council the Political Resident is empowered to make King's Regulations "for securing the observance of any local law", he cannot, in my opinion, by such a Regulation make persons to whom the Order-in-Council applies liable to trial and punishment by any other authority than the courts established under the Order. Since it is probably desirable to apply the same proced ure to persons to whom the Order applies as to persons to whom it does not apply, I suggest that instead of giving the Director judicial powers, he should be given a power to compound offences. This is a fairly common expedient in customs legislation. In the revised draft of the Ordinance the final Articles are recast on this basis.
(11) Some of the penalties prescribed in the draft Ordinance submitted by the Political Resident exceed the penalties which may be imposed under King's Regulations and as it seems desirable that the same maximum penalty should apply to persons within the jurisdiction of the Sheikh's courts and to persons within the jurisdiction of the British courts, reduced penalties are suggested for some of the offences in the revised draft. The list of offences and penalties in Section 33 has also been tidied up generally.
Section 35. The expression "other persons duly employed" in the fourth line is vague. The persons referred to should, if possible, be defined more precisely.
Tiz)
(13) Schedule 3. The list of import duties should be headed "Import Duties". In view of the heading of the Schedule, it is suggested that the references to baggage and books contained therein should be deleted.
(14) The pages of the Schedules seem to have got out of order. Page 19 of the text enclosed
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