HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL — 1 June 1988
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to accrue from a preparatory hearing, he may order such a hearing. In other words, a judge needs to be satisfied that it is a case of the type and seriousness that requires the application of special procedures.
And the objects of the preparatory hearing set out in clause 9 reproduce those proposed by the Select Committee which I have already explained.
Where a judge decides to hold a preparatory hearing the trial commences with that hearing. His decision is not subject to appeal. The accused may plead to the indictment at the commencement of the preparatory hearing or defer his plea so long as he pleads before the jury is empanelled. And those provisions are set out in clauses 10, 11 and 12.
If the judge does not order a preparatory hearing, the trial will proceed in the usual way. The judge also has a discretion to decide what steps should be taken and how much of the new procedure should be adopted in a particular preparatory hearing.
Under clause 13, he may order the prosecutor to prepare a prosecution case statement, which is a concise account of the facts on which the prosecution case is based. He may also require the prosecutor to provide copies of witness statements, documentary exhibits, a list of exhibits and any other explanatory documents he considers appropriate.
The judge may order the accused, under clause 14 of the Bill, to state any objection he has to the prosecution case statement on the basis that it does not disclose the prosecution case with sufficient particularity to enable him to present his defence. The judge may order that the prosecution case statement be amended if it appears to him to be appropriate.
Clause 15 enables the judge to order the accused to state any objections he has to the admissibility of the proposed prosecution evidence. The judge can also determine questions of admissibility at this stage.
Where all objections to the prosecution case statement and the evidence have been dealt with, the judge may order the accused, under clause 16 of the Bill, to submit a defence response indicating the facts on which he takes issue with the prosecution. He may also order the accused to provide a statement of all the reasonably foreseeable propositions of law on which the defence may wish to rely and copies of the statements of any expert witnesses he intends to call.
The removal of the White Bill requirement for a defence case outline and the substitution of a defence response to the prosecution case, recognises that the object of identifying those aspects of the case in issue can be achieved without encroaching on principle.
Once the accused has indicated what part of the case he takes issue with, the next logical step is for the prosecutor to ask the accused to admit facts which have not been disputed. Under clause 17, the judge may order the prosecutor