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Jury (Amendment) Bill 1997
Following is the speech by the Chief Secretary, Mrs Anson Chan, in moving the second reading of the Jury (Amendment) Bill 1997 in the Legislative Council today (Wednesday):
Mr President,
I move that the Jury (Amendment) Bill 1997 be read the second time.
The main aim of the Bill is to amend the Jury Ordinance so as to enable the Judiciary to conduct jury trials in the High Court in Chinese before 1 July 1997. It also proposes to make some minor changes to the list of those exempted from jury service.
It has always been the case that accused persons, litigants and witnesses in Hong Kong courts have the right to use whatever language they wish, with interpretation provided if necessary. Moreover, since 1974, lawyers and magistrates have been able to use either of the official languages in the magistrates' courts.
Article 9 of the Basic Law states that "In addition to the Chinese language, English may also be used as an official language by the executive authorities, legislature and judiciary of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region". This means that either official language may be used in the courts after the transfer of sovereignty. The Judiciary therefore drew up a plan to put in place by 1 July 1997 a bilingual court system in which either English or Chinese can be used at all levels of the courts.
The Official Languages (Amendment) Ordinance 1995 was enacted in July 1995 to remove the restrictions then in force on the use of Chinese in the higher courts and certain tribunals. In February 1996, this was applied to the District Court and the Lands Tribunal, and in December 1996 to the High Court for hearing appeals from magistrates' courts, the Labour Tribunal and the Small Claims Tribunal. At present, however, proceedings in the High Court, except appeals from the lower courts and tribunals, and proceedings in the Court of Appeal can still be conducted only in English. The Judiciary proposes to remove these restrictions by July 1997. However, the relevant sections of the Jury Ordinance need to be amended to enable Chinese to be used in jury trials in the High Court. Clauses 2 to 4 of the Bill therefore amend the Jury Ordinance to change the language requirement for jurors from English to "the language in which the proceedings are to be conducted", ie English or Chinese.
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