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Inheritance Bill: committee stage

Following is the speech by the Secretary for Home Affairs, Mr Michael Suen, at the committee stage of the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Bill in the Legislative Council today (Wednesday):

Mr Chairman,

I move that the clauses specified be amended as set out in the paper circulated to Members.

The amendments to clause 5 provide for changes to clauses 5(4) and 5(5). The change to clause 5(4) is proposed further to the amendment to clause 3 of the Bill already passed by this Council. The change to clause 5(5) is a technical amendment, which replaces "and" with "or" when it first appears.

The amendments to clause 10 allow the court to take into account all the circumstances of a case in treating a death bed gift as part of the net estate of a deceased following an application under the Ordinance. For example, the court would be able to take account of any diminution in the value of gift following the death of the deceased.

The amendment to clause 11 provides for a new sub-section (5) which provides that the clause should only apply to those joint tenancies entered into after the commencement of the Bill. Under the general law, property under a joint tenancy automatically becomes the property of the other person on the death of one of the joint tenants. In other words, it is not normally part of the deceased's estate. Clause 11 provides for such property to be treated as part of the deceased's net estate for the purpose of the Ordinance. Members of the Bills Committee proposed that this should only apply to joint tenancies created after the commencement of the Bill as joint tenancies already in existence have not been made in the expectation that the property concerned would be so treated.

Clause 16 is amended at the suggestion of the Bills Committee to remove the time limit for an application under clause 3 of the Bill made by a former spouse of the deceased. This is proposed as under Hong Kong's circumstances it would not normally be possible to comply with the specified time limit.

The amendment to clause 14 deletes a redundant phrase from the Chinese version of the Bill.