COMMENTS
ON
of Attorney General, they Klang,
PUBLIC ORDER (AMENDMENT) BILL.
8/1⁄2 /íci
The attached Bill has been prepared to take into account
some of the criticisms of the Public Order Ordinance which were made
by the Hong Kong Branch of Justice in their Report on it. The Bill
also enacts, with modification, some provisions which are at present
contained in Emergency Regulations but which are considered to be needed
in permanent legislation. Account has, of course, also been taken of
the Secretary of State's Saving Despatch No. 406 of 27 June, 1968.
References to "the Note" are to the Note by the Attorney General on the
Justice Report; this Note was forwarded to the Secretary of State's
Legal Adviser on 16 February, 1968 and is referred to in Saving Despatch
No. 406.
2.
The definition of "meeting" in section 2 of the principal
Ordinance is replaced. In paragraph 4 of the Note it was proposed to
exclude from this definition meetings convened or held "for the purpose
of carrying out any duty or exercising any power imposed or conferred
by any Ordinance". This has been done by paragraph (ii) of the new
definition. As suggested in paragraph 6 of the Note, the definition is
also amended to make it clear that it is intended to cover only meetings
where there is a degree of organization; the word "hold" has been deleted
and "organized” substituted therefor. Faragraph (b) of the new definition
is designed to make it clear that organization of a group in public,
without any prior planning, will make that group into a meeting for the
purposes of the Ordinance.
3.
Faragraph 5 of the Note agreed that the definition of "offensive
weapon" should be amended by deleting the words "or suitable". However,
the Commissioner of Police has objected very strongly to this, on the
grounds that in Hong Kong the commonest offensive weapons used are the
cargo hook and the mineral water bottle, neither of which are "made" or
"adapted" but both of which are eminently "suitable" for causing injury.
In this connection, the following extract from the judgment of Goddard L.C.J.