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behaviour for raping girls and then selling the victims to prostitute rackets. To cite another example. In a case of selling adulterated wine, the killer suspect was allowed bail in a mere sum of $1,000. He later disappeared himself.
The case which surprised us most was one concerning extortion. It involved a person with profound knowledge of law. The ordinary people think that with so much evidence against him, the suspect would find it difficult to argue it away. Yet, the judge said, "The defendant is very rich, and there is no need for him to commit crimes", and for this reason, he acquitted him. His judgement raised many eyebrows. If the theory of this judge is tenable, doesn't it mean that those millionaire drug bosses are even less likely to commit crime?
After looking at the above cases, it is only natural for the law-abiding ones, like us, to think that the existing laws are something which they can never understand. Certainly they are not the laws which meet the need of the society and which deserve our respect. The people throw more and more doubts on the legal and judiciary systems while their respect for them is getting less and less. It is not surprising at all that the following dangerous situation may finally happen.
(c) The failure of the law has driven people to taking the law into their own hands
The functions of laws are, apart from providing a set of rules and regulations for compliance by the law-abiding people, to create a deterrent effect on the potential law-breakers and, where a crime has already been committed, to enable the imposition of adequate punishment.
The existing laws in Hong Kong, however, fail to produce any deterrent effect on would-be criminals, and after a crime is committed, the punishment handed down on the criminal falls short of expectation of the public. The laws and law enforcement bodies which are supposed to be responsible for ensuring peace and stability in the society, now turn to favour and protect the criminals. They watch with folded-arms that law-abiding citizens being robbed, killed, slain and dismembered by ruthless thugs and turn a deaf ear to the popular request of
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"adopting heavy punishment in times of disorder”. The people, feeling disappointed angry and dissatisfied, tend to resort to lynching. There have already been many cases of this in recent years.
Once the laws in any society have lost the faith and respect of the people, social disorder will follow with the consequence increase in the number of crimes. Hong Kong is now on the brink of such a dangerous position. The government, and especially people in the law circle, should no longer remain in their ivory tower and apply here the laws of a country several thousand miles away, but should pay due regard to the desperate situation of the several million residents here and immediately introduce changes and reform in order to re-build people's faith and trust in them! It will be all too late to do anything until the now law-abiding people turn to disregard laws themselves and the situation will then get out of hand.
(iii) The political system is out-of-date and the social welfare services are also too backward. At a time when the Macau Government has already announced that the number of Official Members in its Legislative Council would be reduced to one-third of the total number of seats, the Hong Kong Government still insists that no elected members will be seated in the Legislative Council. The opinions of the people, therefore, carry no weight in the legislative body, which is purely an official organization.
There is still no social security system in Hong Kong and as such when people become jobless or suffer from accidents, they will not be able to get any assistance. The recommendations contained in the White Paper on Secondary Education which was published only after years of preparation, are not at all up to the expectation of the people but still, the Government uses various excuses to delay their implementation. As a result, the youth problem in Hong Kong has become much more serious as several tens of thousands of primary school leavers could not find a place in the secondary schools and are left wandering in the streets.
Mr. Chairman, in order to improve the worsening state of law and order in Hong Kong and to restore the dignity of laws in the public mind, I have the following proposals to make:-