15 -
convened or organized exclusively
(i)
for the purposes of any public body; or
(ii) for the purposes of carrying out any duty or exercising
any power imposed or conferred by any Ordinance;",
Explanatory Memorandum.
This Bill makes a number of amendments to the Public Order
Ordinance which are designed to clarify some provisions about which
doubt has been expressed and to relax others in order to give better
protection to the public aganist any misuse of powers or against the
possible conviction of persons innocently involved in circumstances
which constitute offences under the Ordinance.
2.
Clause 2 replaces the definition of "meeting" in the princi-
pal Ordinance so as to limit it only to those meetings where there is
a degree of organization and to exclude those meetings which are held
for any statutory purpose, such as creditors' meetings; the definition
will cover the situation where there is no prior organization but a
person assumes control or leadership of a group in a public place.
3.
It is considered desirable that the power conferred on a
police officer by subsection (1) of section 3 of the principal Ordin-
ance should be exercised on the basis of reasonable belief rather than
on the basis of the opinion of the police officer. Similarly, subsec-
tion (2) of section 3 is amended so as to ensure that when a police
officer enters any premises or place it should be "reasonably" neces-
sary for him to do so. The section is also amended so as to control the
flying of flags on vehicles and vessels, as well as on premises.