4000091 P.R.H. 7
*) IN
R.GITAT No. 51
15770
14418
HKKIH
HONG KONG GOVERNMENT
INFORMATION SERVICES
DAILY INFORMATION
BULLETIN
(2),
Ref x10 para 5(B) & 42, plave kap a wosk
Hansard &
Dut
passing 1x 1
(55)
to the
Roy. Re
this Bill. See also Monday, October 26, 1970
ANC 16.11.20
PREVENTION OF BRIBERY BILL 1970
No Defence That Receiving Advantage Is Local Custom
********
The Prevention of Bribery Bill 1970 provides that it will not be
a defence to show the giving or receiving of an advantage "is customary
in Hong Kong in the particular trade or business concerned."
Mr. D.T.E. Roberts, Attorney General, told the Legislative Council
last Wednesday when he moved the Bill's second reading that clause 21
enabled evidence of "unexplained pecuniary resources" to be given on a
charge for any offence under the Bill.
Clause 22 modified the common law rule by which a court was required
to have specific regard to the danger of convicting a person on the evidence
of an accomplice alone, without corroboration.
This rule had developed, in practice, to a point at which courts
had become "very reluctant to convict on the uncorroborated evidence of an
accomplice."
So clause 22 sought to modify that practice to the extent that,
for the purposes of the rule, one party to a corrupt transaction should not
be regarded as an accomplice of the other party in a prosecution against
the latter for an offence under the Bill.
/"This