Foreign and Commonwealth Office
•
London S.W.1.
CONFIDENTIAL
SAVING DESPATCH
HKK 14/15
From the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth
To the Governor, HONG KONG
22 May, 1969
No. 208
·
Your Saving Despatch No. 4 of 3 January.
Public Order Ordinance.
Affairs
I am grateful for the considerable extent to which the draft Bill enclosed with your Saving Despatch meets the various criticisms levelled at the Public Order Ordinance, 1967. The matters raised in your paragraph 2, together with certain other points, are dealt with below. References are to existing sections of the Ordinance and to paragraphs of your Attorney-General's comments on the draft Bill.
2. Section 2: (paragraph 3)
I am not convinced of the necessity for including in permanent legislation the words "or suitable" in the defini- tion of "offensive weapon" although I fully appreciate the reasons for the views that you hold on this matter. adhere to these views, I would invite you to discuss this particular point with Lord Shepherd during his forthcoming visit to Hong Kong.
3. Section 7: (paragraph 5)
If you
This section, as amended by clause 4 of the draft Bill, will now apply to funeral processions only and not to public meetings for the purposes of funerals. These provisions pre- suppose that it would always be possible to apply for a licence to hold a funeral procession, two days before such procession, and this appears to be a somewhat doubtful pre- sumption. Moreover, it appears that the powers conferred on the Commissioner of Police by section 17(4) to refuse such a licence are too wide and that some of the grounds on which a licence may be refused are not appropriate in the case of such processions. I recognize that in the circumstances of Hong Kong strict control is required over funeral processions, but it seems that section 7 does not provide the appropriate control and it may be desirable to have a separate clause to deal with the subject. Grateful if this matter may be given further consideration.