LEGAL MEN HIT OUT:
Setback to anti-crime
campaign
12 MAY 1973 CRL
By JOHN SPAREY
HONGKONG'S big anti-crime campaign came in for its first real setback today ... less than 24 hours after the Governor outlined the proposals.
District Courts: Many people who previously had the right to trial
Members of the legal profession, in a lengthy by jury will be deprived of this benifit. statement, have strongly criticised the legislation brought in to back the crime busting operation.
And unless the charge carries a maximum of 14 years jail they will be new deprived of Legal Aid.
The new Bills were gazetted yesterday and a special Bar Association committee today claimed that they increase the risk of innocent people being convicted.
Its statement also says that many people on serious charges will be unable to get Legal Aid because of the sweeping new powersgiven to magistrates and district courts.
PUNISHMENT
The committee was set up to study crime punishment.
Its chairman is prominent barrister Mr Gerald de Basto and its members include other senior barristers and members of the law faculty of Hongkong University.
The statement says the committee supported any "reasonable measures" to combat crime, but at the same time it is specially concerned that innocent people will not be unjustly accused and convicted.
This is what it says about the new legislation:
Magistrates: By increasing their power of imprisonment from two years to four there will be "serious concequences Legal Aid is not available in these courts and they will be tried by magistrates with limited experience. In England no one below a circut judge has comparable powers of sentencing.
This aspect will affect every “citizen of Hongkong" who finds himself accused.
Mandatory sentences: This is a "serious interference" with the discretion of the judiciary and there is no evidence that they work.
PLENTIFUL
where drugs are plentiful and the influence of triad societies is all It says it doubts if young offenders are reformed by going to prison
pervading."
Hongkong. It failed then and will fail now.
• Corporal punishment: This was widely used in the early history of
Preventive detention: This also will fail and is unlikely to be used against the "big-time criminal" but against petty criminals and social misfits who are not the presentproblem.
• Special facilities: There are insufficient detention centres and unless there are adequate facilities for preventive detention it ought not to be introduced.
The statement from the committee will be sent to the Attorney General Dennys Roberst, and to other interested parties on request.