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Public Order
Visiting Justices
Two visiting Justices of the Peace visit each penal institution fortnightly or monthly, depending on the type of facility. The Justices of the Peace receive and investigate complaints from persons in custody, inspect their diets and examine their living and working conditions.
Quality Assurance
To uphold and continuously improve service standards, the department initiates enhancements through regular inspections and management studies.
Complaints
The Complaints Investigation Unit handles and investigates complaints related to the department. All investigation reports are scrutinised by the CSD Complaints Committee. Persons in custody may lodge complaints with any CSD officer or through other channels, such as the visiting Justices of the Peace, the Ombudsman and Legislative Councillors.
Customs and Excise Department
The Customs and Excise Department is responsible primarily for the collection of revenue on dutiable goods, prevention of duty evasion, suppression of drug trafficking and abuse, prevention and detection of smuggling, and protection of intellectual property rights. The department also enforces legislation to protect consumer interests, safeguard and facilitate legitimate trade and industry, uphold Hong Kong's trading integrity and fulfil relevant international obligations. At the year end, it had a staff of 5,967. (See also Chapter 5).
Revenue Protection and Collection
The department collects excise duties derived from dutiable commodities stipulated in the Dutiable Commodities Ordinance: liquor, tobacco, hydrocarbon oil and methyl alcohol. It also administers a licensing and permit system to ensure no dutiable commodities, whether imported or locally manufactured, are released for local consumption unless full duty has been paid. During the financial year 2014-15, the excise duties collected amounted to $10.01 billion, representing an increase of 3 per cent over 2013-14.
The department also assesses the taxable values of motor vehicles under the Motor Vehicles (First Registration Tax) Ordinance. In 2014-15, it registered 135 motor traders, assessed the provisional taxable values of 79,093 vehicles and re-assessed 27,511 of them, resulting in the collection of $9.55 billion first registration tax by the Transport Department.
The Customs and Excise Department undertakes sustained enforcement action against illicit cigarette activities on all fronts and co-operates with overseas customs authorities to stamp out transnational cigarette smuggling, including monitoring suspicious shipments through intelligence exchange.
In 2015, the department handled 1,896 cases involving the smuggling, storage, distribution and peddling of illicit cigarettes (a decrease of 10.5 per cent compared with 2014) and seized 69 million sticks of illicit cigarettes. Under a Compounding Scheme, 8,410 people were fined for
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