134 HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL - 21st October 1970.
[THE ATTORNEY GENERAL] Prevention of Bribery Bill-second
reading
shown and every precaution taken against too frequent use of them. As honourable Members will have observed, most of the powers con- ferred by the bill are subject to my authority or direction. For these reasons, and because many cases under investigation under the bill will present legal and evidential problems of some complexity, the Standing Finance Committee of this Council has approved the creation of a new post of Principal Crown Counsel, who will be attached to the Anti- Corruption Branch as my representative. He will perform, with certain exceptions to which I will refer later, the various tasks which are imposed on me by the bill, and will assist the Director of the Anti- Corruption Branch to maintain a proper balance between the require- ments of an investigation and the need not to interfere unjustifiably with the privacy of private citizens or of public servants.
Clause 3 makes it an offence for a Crown servant to accept or solicit any advantage unless he has the general or special permission of the Governor to do so. In the 1969 bill this clause applied to public servants in the wide sense of the term, which, as I have mentioned, includes the employees of any of the bodies listed in the Schedule, or members of Executive, Legislative or Urban Councils and of various boards, bodies and commissions, appointed by the Governor.
Crown servants are, by virtue of Colonial Regulations, Establish- ment Regulations and General Orders, already subject to rules which control the kind of gifts and advantages which they may properly receive, even in circumstances related only to their private life. Members of the other bodies and authorities to which I have referred, however, are not subject to such a control and it would be hardly possible for the Governor to define the circumstances in which advantages might be properly accepted by their employees. On re-consideration, there- fore, it is thought that it would not be reasonable or practicable to attempt to impose on them the very tight control contained in clause 3. Consequently this clause is now limited to Crown servants, that is to say, paid employees of the Hong Kong Government.
Honourable Members will have observed that the word "advantage" which is defined in clause 2 is in very wide terms so as to include any gift, loan, entertainment, favour, benefit or service of any description. It would, for example, be an offence for a Crown servant to accept dinner from a friend, unless such acceptance were permitted by the terms of a general or special permission of the Governor.
Establishment Regulations, as I have said, already exist which allow Crown servants to accept presents, gifts and advantages of various kinds in specified circumstances, and these regulations will be used as