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of embarrassment to an honest officer with private means who may be able
to live above the standard justified by his salary alone.
What the redrafted clause does is to give a public servant
a right to make representations to the Attorney General before any
prosecution is brought against him. The Attorney General will have to
consider these before giving his consent to a prosecution under clause 10.
The clause is also amended so as to prevent the Attorney General from
delegating his duty under this clause to anybody though by virtue by
of the Legal Officers Ordinance the duty can also be performed by the
Solicitor Genera).
It is hoped that these alterations may go some way to making
clause 10 less unpalatable to the F.C.O.
4.
Paragraph 5. There has been very little objection taken in
Hong Kong to clause 14 of the Bill, save insofar as that clause infringed
the secrecy provisions imposed on officers of the Inland Revenue Department.
This latter point has been met by providing that the powers conferred
by clause 14 are nevertheless subject to those secrecy provisions.
It is considered essential that some form of sanction should
be available to deal with those persons who refused to comply with
notices which have been issued under clause 14(1) or (2). Otherwise,
those latter sub-clauses are likely to be largely ineffective.
5.
Paragraph 6. Clause 15 of the Bill, requiring legal advisers
to give information, has been redrafted and further limited and appears
to be generally acceptable to the legal profession in Hong Kong in its
present form, though some local lawyers can be expected to object to it.
Paragraph 7. Clause 20(1)(b) vests a discretion on the Court
and does not oblige it to adopt the presumption set out in that paragraph.
Although somewhat different in wording, the proposed clause 20
differs little from section 12 of the existing Prevention of Corruption
Ordinance (Cap. 215) which reads as follows :-
6.