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The Commission's working group preparing the Code of Practice on Employment under SDO has discussed today (Friday) an internal preliminary working draft of the Code.
The Working Group had thoroughly considered the preliminary draft and felt that many parts of it needs rewriting, including the part on personal appearance.
Specifically, the Working Group considered that the following guidelines should be laid down in respect of personal appearance:
the policies should be reasonable having regard to the occupational requirement and the changing social norms; and
the policies should be applied in a fair and evenhanded manner on all employees in that no detrimental effects will be imposed on a particular group of employees in complying with the polices.
The Commission plans to start consulting with the employment sector and concern groups on the codes in August.
With the input from these relevant organisations and bodies, the revised code will be published for general consultation with the public in October.
Thereafter, the Commission aims to introduce the codes to the Legislative Council for approval in November so as to enable the employment-related provisions of the two ordinances to take effect before the end of the year.
End
New vehicle emission and motor fuel standards introduced
The Government is to introduce two new regulations to effect the upgrading of vehicle emission standards and the quality of motor fuel in line with latest international trends so as to improve emissions from motor vehicles for the abatement of air pollution.
They are the Air Pollution Control (Vehicle Design Standards) (Emission) (Amendment) Regulation 1996 and the Air Pollution Control (Motor Vehicle Fuel) (Amendment) Regulation 1996 made by the Secretary for Planning, Environment and Lands, which are published in the Gazette today (Friday).