HKK X5/14
Reference.....
24
Mr. Foggon (Overseas Labour Adviser)
Hong Kong Trade Union (Amendment) Bill
We spoke.
I have considered further the questions raised by the memorandum and discussed briefly with Mr. Rushford the views which follow.
2.
Debarment from holding office in a Trade Union
Further consideration has merely confirmed me in my dislike of section 12(c) as redrafted, for the reasons stated in my minute of 29 September, viz, briefly:-
(a)
offences "against public order" constitute a category which is ill-defined to an unacceptable extent; and (b) some offences certainly included in that category
those under the Public Order Ordinance Part IV are themselves so wide that the proposed section would catch more offenders than can possibly be intended or indeed be just.
I think therefore this section should be amended by deleting the words "or against public order".
3. The Memorandum also objects to the inclusion of offences "involving violence" but the objections in this instance are far less strongly expressed and indeed seem to me to have far less force. This category of offence is readily under- standable and clearly defined. The only point of any substance is that it could include comparatively minor offences, and this applies equally of course to the other specified offences fraud, etc. To meet this point I would be inclined to revert to the previous idea of a proviso that the sentence on conviction for the specified offences should have been of a minimum gravity.
4.
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Peaceful Picketing
Here again further consideration has reinforced my earlier conclusion that there is no legal question here, only a political one.
5.
I have investigated the possibility that Hong Kong might be in breach of an obligation in international law by introducing the proposed provisions. There seems in fact no danger of that. The "right to strike" and the "right peacefully to picket" are not found in any of the 1.10 conventions that have been extended to Hong Kong (a list of which Miss Davies kindly supplied). They are not even enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights which is, although not universally adopted, and certainly not in force for Hong Kong, the nearest thing to an internationally accepted standard of human rights and a useful guidine. There are thus no objections from an international law point of view.
5. Nor can I see any objections from the point of view of domestic law. There could have been legal objection if the restrictions made the right conferred illusory, but they do not unless you assume, as the Memorandum does, that the Police will in all cases interpret the law against Trade
/Unionists
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