HRC241/4
27 MAR 1991
Legal Advisers'
summary.
33
تها
pa for 2013
SUMMARY OF THE HONG KONG GOVERNMENT'S PROPOSED AMENDMENTS TO
THEIR IMMIGRATION ORDINANCE
1. Powers to detain Vietnamese Boat People
(i) The powers of immigration officers to detain any Vietnamese person (including children) arriving in Hong Kong without a valid visa will be expressly extended to cover
persons who have not requested permission to remain in Hong Kong. This is in response to the case in which 111 people who had asked for help with repairs to their boat rather than permission to remain were found to have been detained
illegally.
(ii) Two new provisions provide (a) that any such Vietnamese who is detained "shall be detained pending a decision to grant or refuse him permission to remain in Hong Kong or, after a decision to refuse him such permission, pending his removal from Hong Kong" and (b) that the detention shall not
be unlawful by reason of the period of detention if that
period is reasonable having regard to various factors such
as, in the case of a person awaiting screening, the number
of others waiting and the resources allocated to that
process, and, in the case of a person awaiting removal, the difficulties involved in carrying it out.
FCO Legal Advisers' consider that the two amendments read
together could be regarded as an improvement on the existing
law. They would then have the effect of enabling the courts
to consider the reasonableness of the length of detention in
the light of the special factors involved, and alleviating
to some extent the present breaches of the ICCPR.
ССЗАСІ/1
CC