CO129-604-7 Expulsion of Undesirables Ordinance 1949 19-8-1949 - 16-12-1949 — Page 19

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HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL

An important consequence, Sir, of that situation is that public health and public order is menaced in particular by the presence of a large number of persons who are new-comers to the Colony and who, being incapable of absorption into the Colony's economic fabric, never- theless remain in the Colony by their own choice, but in conditions of inevitable and incurable squalor and unemployment.

Honourable Members will know that there exists, and has long existed, in the Colony legislation providing for the deportation or expulsion of undesirables from the Colony. Examples of such legislation are provided by the Vagrancy Ordinance of 1897 and by the Deportation of Aliens Ordinance, 1935. As such the legislation I have quoted is in frequent employment. Nevertheless, the machinery of such legislation, designed as it is for the relatively infrequent cases, is unexpeditious in operation and is not in general suited to the problem presented by an excess of population or an excess of the proportion in the population of persons who are undesirable, such expression is defined in clause 4 of the Bill.

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Sir, the scheme for which the Bill before Council seeks to provide legislation and authority has, I believe, been adequately described in detail in the Objects and Reasons which have been published with the Bill as in the hands of Honourable Members. In so far as the scheme is capable of summarised description, such description is this: it provides, Sir, for an expeditious method, yet a method not too arbitrary and subject to reasonable safeguards, which enables the expulsion of persons who may be found to be undesirable for the reasons listed in clause 4 of the Bill.

Now, Sir, clause 4 of the Bill is largely founded upon the precedent of section 11 of the Immigrants Control Ordinance, 1949. The section sets out, and that section in the Immigrants Control Ordinance sets out, the categories of persons to whom the Bill applies and, in the case of the Immigrants Control Ordinance, sets out the categories of persons to whom entry to the Colony may be refused. Thus there is some reality in the comment which I have today read in the press that, in a sense, the Bill before Council provides for a process of immigration control in reverse. But, Sir, I draw the particular attention of Honourable Members to clause 3 of the Bill and it will be seen that such clause provides that a competent authority before he can make an order of expulsion, must hold due enquiry as prescribed by the provisions of the legislation. Furthermore, that clause, clause 3, makes it clear that there can be no order of expulsion made under this proposed Ordinance, in the case of a British subject, that is to say, a person who is born in the Colony, or who is otherwise a British subject; or in the case of a person who has been ordinarily resident in the Colony for a period of 10 years or more.

Sir, I believe I have said sufficient to emphasise that the proposed legislation is so proposed in relation to conditions of over-population of the Colony, and also to the fact that the legislation is intended as a re-inforcement to the usual legislation of this Colony which is like the legislation of most other parts of the world in giving powers of deportation and expulsion.

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