HAB 01/1
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MOR-GROL
Foreign & Commonwealth Office
POLITICAL
Raron
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London SW1 2AH
From The Minister of State
Dea Julian
7 May 1991
Thank you for your letter of 22 April enclosing one from your constituent, Mr Neil C Wright of 52b Palace Street, Canterbury, Kent CT1 2DY, about the prosecution in Hong Kong of five members of the United Democrats of Hong Kong under the Summary Offences Ordinance. You asked about the current situation.
Last July the five persons were found guilty of the unauthorised use of loudspeakers and collecting money in public illegally, and were fined. Their fines were paid by an anonymous person. The five then appealed against the court's decision.
The appeal had three parts. The first was an appeal against conviction. The appellants claimed that because in the past the police had only ever given verbal warnings against the use of loudhailers and collecting money, they believed it was permissible to do so. The appellants also claimed that the conviction should not be upheld because there was no evidence that they had been a nuisance to the public.
The second and most important part was an appeal against the magistrate's refusal to stay the prosecutions in the first place. The appellants claimed that as the police had not prosecuted anybody for the offences for a very long time, they had a "legitmate expectation" that they would also not be prosecuted. The prosecutions were therefore an abuse of court process.
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The third part was an appeal against their sentence fine of about £10 each, which they argued to be excessive and inappropriate.
The
The Appeal Court ruled in January this year. appeal against conviction was unsuccessful on two counts. The Chief Justice ruled that it was not a lawful excuse for the appellants to maintain that because of experience of unrestricted use of loudhailers on previous occasions, that they believed it was permissible to do so, and that the Crown was not required to prove nuisance as an ingredient of offence.
J Brazier Esq MP House of Commons LONDON SW1A OAA
However, the