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under Part 4 of the Covenant, to consider violations of
In other words, the Covenant by the Hong Kong Government.
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at 11
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ما
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any person aggrieved by the decisions of the Hong Kong Government, through the Censor, cannot bring the Hong Kong Government before the Human Rights Committee for a determination as to whether or not the Censor had violated the rights conferred upon him by the Covenant.
Let me now deal with the principal arguments put forward in opposition to my proposal, and many of which have been advanced this afternoon by the Honourable Mr. YEUNG Po-kwan. The first argument is that the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights is an international agreement
to require between states, rather than individuals. That an individual Censor to comply with the Covenant is inappropriate and that to require him to take into account Article 19 avoids this problem, whilst at the same time imposing on him an express duty to respect the principle of freedom of expression.
Sir, while it is true that the International Covenant imposes a duty on the contracting state rather than individuals within that state, there are two levels of compliance we are looking at. First, a contracting state must not pass any law which contravenes the International Covenant. Secondly, the contracting state must not do anything which would constitute a breach of the International Covenant. Members of this Committee have to satisfy themselves that
clausi Section 10(2)(c) which introduces a political censorship of a film does not infringe Article 19 of the International Covenant. And before we can so satisfy ourselves, we must ensure that the Censor, when he does exercise the statutory
свето powers given to him by subsection 10(2)(c), will not be in a position to ban the film for reasons other than those which fall within the exceptions allowed for in Article 19(3).
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