IN CONFIDENCE
SECTION 4: TOPICAL ISSUES (INTERNAL)
CORRUPTION
4.1
Corruption has for many years been a problem in Hong Kong. Public attention focussed strongly on the problem in 1973 following the arrest and subsequent conviction on corruption charges of a senior expatriate police officer. This led to the establishment of the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) in February 1974. The Commission's functions are to investigate complaints of corruption, to take steps for its prevention and to enlist community support for its elimination. By the middle of 1977 ICAC had succeeded in breaking up the major corruption syndicates in Hong Kong. However, in October and November 1977, a feeling of persecution, nurtured by a corrupt minority, developed in the Royal Hong Kong Police Force. This led to complaints, protest marches by off-duty policemen and, finally, a state of near mutiny. The Governor felt obliged to declare a limited amnesty, which applied to all corrupt acts committed before 1 January 1977, except those already under investigation, those which the Governor considered particularly "heinous", and those committed by people who were abroad when the amnesty was declared. As was hoped, this defused the situation. Subsequently a Home Office team, led by an Inspector of Constabulary, were invited by the Governor in January 1976 to undertake a review of the RIKPF. They identified certain fundamental problems affecting the management and morale of the force, and made a number of recommendations which were accepted by the Governor and are now being implemented.
DEATH PENALTY
4.2 The death penalty still exists in Hong Kong law and public opinion there is strongly in favour of its being applied. However, although convictions on capital charges occur regularly no death sentence has been carried out since 1966. This situation causes some resentment in Hong Kong on the grounds that local opinion has apparently been overruled. An announcement by the Governor in late 1975 that he would impose life sentences, save in exceptional circumstances, when commuting the death penalty, appears to have taken some of the sting out of this issue but it remains a sensitive
one.
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