Hong Kong Ordinances

TOYS AND CHILDREN'S PRODUCTS SAFETY ORDINANCE - SECT 8

The general safety requirement

PART IV

GENERAL SAFETY REQUIREMENT

(1) No person shall manufacture, import or supply a toy or children's product,
if it fails to comply with the general safety  requirement.

(2) For the purposes of this section, "general safety requirement"
(一般安全規定) means a duty to ensure that a toy or children's product
is reasonably safe having regard to all the circumstances, including-

   (a)  the manner in which, and the purposes for which, the toy or children's
        product is being or would be marketed, the use of any mark in relation
        to it and any instructions or warnings which are given or would be
        given with respect to the keeping, use or consumption of it; and

   (b)  the existence of any means by which it would have been reasonable,
        taking into account the cost, likelihood and extent of any
        improvement, for it to have been made safer.

(3) For the purposes of this section, where-

   (a)  at least one of the sets of safety standards listed in section  3
        (1)(a), (b) and (c) contains requirements that apply to a particular
        toy; and

   (b)  the particular toy, including its packaging, complies with each and
        every applicable requirement of at least one of the said sets of
        safety standards containing such requirements, the particular toy
        shall be deemed to comply with the general safety  requirement.

(4) For the purposes of this section, a children's product listed in the
Schedule shall be deemed to comply with the general safety  requirement if it
complies in all respects with the specification, or at least one of the
relevant specifications (if there is more than one specification), for that
product listed opposite it in the Schedule. (Amended 16 of 1997 s. 6)

(5) Subsection (1) does not apply to goods in transit, goods in the course of
transhipment or goods manufactured for export.

(6) A person who contravenes subsection (1) commits an offence.

(7) In any proceedings against any person for an offence under this section in
respect of any toys or children's products it shall be a defence for that
person to show-

   (a)  that he reasonably believed that they would not be used or consumed in
        Hong Kong;

   (b)  that-

        (i)    he supplied them in the course of carrying on a retail
               business; and

        (ii)   at the time he supplied them, he neither knew nor had
               reasonable grounds for believing that they failed to comply
               with the general safety requirement; or

   (c)  that the terms on which he sold them indicated that they were not
        being sold as new goods. (Enacted 1992)

"general safety requirement" (一般安全規定)