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Public interest immunity certificates
Following is a question by the Hon Margaret Ng and a reply by the Attorney General, the Hon Jeremy Mathews, in the Legislative Council today (Wednesday):
Question:
It is learnt that in a recent criminal court case, the Chief Secretary signed two "public interest immunity certificates" claiming that certain documents should not be disclosed on the ground that it was in the interest of the public to protect the identity of the informant concerned. The presiding Judge dealt with the certificates by ordering some of the documents in question to be disclosed, and it was subsequently held that there was no case to answer. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:
(a)
(b)
(c)
who decides that a public interest immunity certificate is necessary in any given case; and what guidelines will be taken into consideration before a decision is made to request the Chief Secretary to sign a public interest immunity certificate;
of the number of public interest immunity certificates signed by the Chief Secretary in the past 3 years; and
whether the Chief Secretary has ever refused to sign any public interest immunity certificate in the past 3 years; and if so, in how many cases?
Reply:
Mr President,
In the case referred to in the question, the Chief Secretary issued two public interest immunity certificates, the first claiming immunity in relation to 56 documents and the second in relation to ten documents. After considering the certificates and examining the documents, the Judge ordered disclosure of 14 of the documents covered by the first certificate and one document covered by the second certificate. The Judge's decision that there was no case to answer was unrelated to the content of the documents which were disclosed.