Mr. Gaminara
Reference..........
HKK 14/38
(4)
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Mr. Rushford and I have perused the Prevention of Bribery Bill. It may assist whoever will be attending the meeting with Mr. Roberts to know beforehand our preliminary comments which I set out below.
2. The definition of "public body" in Clause 2 states that the expression means (a) the Government, and (b) any Government department or undertaking. It seems to us that the latter should be omitted as a Govern- ment department or undertaking is only part of Government.
But
3. Clause 3 is in very wide terms and would cover a present to an officer from his wife or even accepting a lift in a car. In practice, of course, the Attorney-General would never sanc- tion prosecution in such a type of case. from a presentational point of view it woul d be preferable, we suggest, to provide in Clause 1 that the acceptance of an advantage normally given by ordinary friends and relations should not constitute an offence under the Clause. It should be pointed out to the Hong Kong Government that having this Clause in such wide terms means that in every case of an officer accepting a gift in circumstances which contravene Colonial Regulation 514there should be a prosecution because the practice which has been laid down over many years is that, when an offence committed by an officer is clearly criminal in its nature, it should be referred to a Criminal Court for trial. (See paragraph 4 of Sir Allison Russell's notes.) The maximum penalty for an offence under Clause 3 is $ 20,000 or seven years imprisonment. Such punishment is approp- riate where corruption is proved but seems somewhat excessive for the offence of accepting an advantage. Presumably there is in Hong Kong already an offence relating to corrupt practices and if so, and the penalty for that offence is not sufficient, it could be increased and a lesser penalty provided in respect of offences under Clause 3. "Bribery" would not seem to be an appropriate marginal note to this Clause. Incidentally, we suggest that in view of the definition in Clause 2(c), the words in Clause 3. "whether for himself or any other public servant" should be omitted.
14.