- 22.
With this three-tier approach, we have gone a long way to ensure the protection of press freedom, but without undermining our ability to enforce the law and to protect public order and safety.
Finally, I should like to assure this Council and the media that our law enforcement agencies never look upon journalists or journalistic materials as the normal means of acquiring evidence for the purposes of criminal investigations. The revised regime for access to journalistic materials under this Bill and the amendments which I will propose later provide a series of different levels of hurdles which must be The law overcome before journalistic materials can be searched or seized. enforcement agents have rarely exercised their powers to search or seize journalistic material in the past and I have no doubt that they will rarely seek to do so in the future. They will draw up detailed operational guidelines on how to exercise such powers to ensure that these powers will not be used unless the circumstances fully justify it.
Mr President, with these remarks, I commend the Bill to Honourable Members.
End/Friday, July 28, 1995
Medical Registration (A) Bill: second reading
Following is the speech by the acting Secretary for Health and Welfare, Mrs Shelley Lau, at the resumption of the second reading of the Medical Registration (Amendment) Bill 1995 in the Legislative Council today (Friday):
Madam Deputy,
I should like to thank the Chairman and Members of the Bills Committee for their careful scrutiny of those provisions in the Bill which the Committee identified as priorities to be passed within this session. These provisions concern mainly the introduction of a universal licensing examination, referred to in the Bill as the Licensing Examination, and Limited Registration.