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Fourthly, clauses 2, 5 and 6 contain consequential amendments to the Supreme Court Ordinance, the Pension Benefits (Judicial Officers) Ordinance and the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal Ordinance respectively.
Mr President, I commend the Bill to this Council for early passage into law.
End
Transfer of Sentenced Persons Bill: second reading
Following is the speech by the Secretary for Security, Mr Peter Lai, in moving the second reading of the Transfer of Sentenced Persons Bill in the Legislative Council today (Wednesday):
Mr President,
I move that the Transfer of Sentenced Persons Bill be read a second time.
Transfer of sentenced persons is an important area of international co-operation in law enforcement. The purpose of transferring sentenced persons to their own countries to serve their custodial sentences is to facilitate their rehabilitation, by returning them to an environment free of language and cultural barriers and where their friends and relatives can visit them on a regular basis.
Hong Kong's arrangements for the transfer of sentenced persons are at present provided for by the Council of Europe Convention in relation to the Transfer of Sentenced Persons and the UK/Thailand Agreement in relation to the Transfer of Offenders. These agreements signed by the UK have been extended to Hong Kong but they cannot continue to apply to Hong Kong after 30 June 1997. With the agreement of the Chinese side in the Joint Liaison Group, we are establishing our own bilateral arrangements with other jurisdictions for the transfer of sentenced persons which will remain in force beyond 30 June 1997. However, we cannot bring any of our new bilateral arrangements into operation until there is an implementing legislation.
The main purpose of the Bill is to provide the appropriate legal framework to enable Hong Kong to implement our new Transfer of Sentenced Persons (TSP) agreements with other jurisdictions. Without this legislation, it will not be possible for Hong Kong to transfer sentenced persons to and from Hong Kong in accordance with the new TSP agreements after 30 June 1997. Nor, equally important, will we be able to continue the detention of prisoners who have already been transferred pursuant to the existing arrangements.