HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL — 11 January 1989
香港立法局———————— 一九八九年一月十一日
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DR. LEONG: Sir, in March 1987, a substantial number of my colleagues in the medical functional constituency were upset by the enactment of section 27 of the Public Order Ordinance which prohibits the publication of false news likely to cause public alarm or disturb public order. I was personally unfortunate not to have been present in this Council for that debate.
Today, Sir, I rise with delight in support of the present Bill to repeal this draconian provision that has been proven to be unnecessary in this city which has always been regarded as a bastion of the free press.
True, as the Secretary for Administrative Services and Information has said earlier, this is a time for healing, not a time for re-opening old wounds.
But as a medical practitioner, I know that there are times when old wounds must be re-opened to identify the cause of ailment; for unless the cause is identified, there is always a danger and chance of recurrence.
I find it extremely misleading, Sir, that the Administration should seek to repeal section 27 of the Public Order Ordinance but at the same time argues that the factors supporting retention of the controversial provision are "as valid today as they were nearly two years ago". It gives an impression that the repealing was made to avoid confrontation and to please the public for the sake of just pleasing them. There needs, therefore, to be a more convincing reason.
The fact remains that the Administration was wrong in the first place to have introduced section 27 which widened rather than narrowed the control over freedom of expression.
Furthermore, section 27 is more draconian in the sense that, by deleting such words as "maliciously to publish in any local newspapers" from the original Control of Publications Ordinance and at the same time adding the phrase "any person who publishes false news", it extends the control from over local newspapers to the public at large.
None the less, late corrections are better than no corrections.
Sir, section 27 can only be taken as the end of the beginning of Hong Kong people's repulsion against provisions that undermine our basic human rights. Whether we like it or not, Hong Kong is to come across more public sentiments relating to the changing political situations and conservation of human rights during the run-up to 1997.