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A further liberalisation of the law affecting the press is found in the proposed amendment of section 19 of the Complex Commercial Crimes Ordinance. It is proposed, in clause 7, that publication of reports of a preparatory hearing of a serious and complex commercial crime case, which are now prohibited indefinitely, should be allowed after the case has been concluded.
Amendments relating to Bill of Rights Ordinance
Another important aspect of the Bill is the repeal or amendment of certain provisions which are inconsistent with the Bill of Rights.
Provisions in the Protection of Children and Juvenile Ordinance, the Probation of Offenders Ordinance, and the Community Service Orders Ordinance, require a person (usually a probation officer or social work officer) supervising a female offender to be a woman. These provisions assume that male officers are not suitable to supervise female probationers and deprive female probationers from receiving supervisory assistance from male officers. They are not considered to be objectively justified under article 22 of the Bill of Rights Ordinance and are therefore discriminatory. Clauses 52-54 of the Bill propose they be repealed. There will be sufficient safeguards against any possible abuse. A senior officer will be responsible for supervising the probation officer and will provide guidance to the officer as appropriate. Special arrangements can, if necessary, also be made for any particular probationer, after taking into account the interests of that person. The amendment also removes an operational problem, in that a female officer will no longer need to be assigned for a female probationer.
Another Bill of Rights problem relates to section 17 of the Summary Offences Ordinance. This makes it an offence for a person to be in possession of certain things, including an offensive weapon, 'with intent to use the same for any unlawful purpose, or being unable to give satisfactory account of his possession thereof. In 1994, the Court of Appeal decided that the words 'or being unable to give satisfactory account of his possession thereof were inconsistent with the presumption of innocence in article 11 of the Bill of Rights Ordinance, and had therefore been repealed. The Bill proposes in clause 50, to reflect this decision by deleting those words from the section. However, this will not lead to any weakening of the law relating to offensive weapons. Adequate provision to deal with such weapons is found in the remaining part of section 17 of the Ordinance and in section 33 of the Public Order Ordinance.