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its
proper authority of the Executive Committee or
members thereof, the candidate will have no defence
section
sution
to the charges under $17 (1) or $17 (2) and be disqualified for 10 years from standing for
elections. We therefore insist that a defence of
reasonable excuse be written into the law, but in
order to ensure that the law cannot be easily
abused, we specify that an oral consent cannot
constitute a reasonable excuse.
This amendment deals with Mr. Desmond LEE'S
"banana skin theory in that the candidate who at
the beginning has obtained the written consent of a
devious supporter does in fact have a good defence.
The Administration agreed with the amendments which
the will be moved by Mrs. Pauline NG at committee stage.
Then we consider question of
2. The question of subsequent withdrawal of consent
the mechanism
We
own
>
His The Ace discussed at length its issue, trying to decide /whether there should be provisions in the law to deal with subsequent withdrawals of consent, eg.
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
whether it should be done in writing? How soon
should it take effect? What are the implications on election expenses? A majority of the Ad hoc Group members believed that the candidate should be selective in choosing his/supporters (and vice
versa) and there must be real understanding between
him and the supporter of the seriousness of giving
personal endorsement to the candidate. The
candidate must think that it is to his advantage to
obtain such endorsement and must therefore take the
risk if his judgement of character of the supporter is incorrect. The supporter must also be careful about his own choice of candidate and in any event
section he can obtain an injunction under $16 (3) of the Ordinance as a remedy if he withdraws his support. The Ad hoc Group/decided that this Bill is not
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