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As Mr Ho has noted, considerable controversy arose over the wasted costs provisions. Let me re-state the underlying philosophy for these provisions. The idea is to arm the courts with an effective remedy for the protection of the injured, so that any costs incurred by a party to criminal proceedings as a result of any unjustifiable conduct on the part of his legal or other representative will be borne by that lawyer or representative. These wasted costs provisions would apply equally to the Crown. I should stress that the provisions are not aimed at penalising the lawyer or representative but to compensate the injured party for the loss where it would be unreasonable to expect him to pay.

The Bar Association and the Bills Committee were opposed to the definition of wasted costs as originally set out in Clause 2 which, as it now stands, proposes to define wasted costs to mean any costs incurred by a party to criminal proceedings as a result of an improper, unreasonable or negligent act or omission on the part of his legal or other representative, or where, in the light of any such act or omission occurring after such costs had been incurred, it is unreasonable to expect that party to pay.

The Bills Committee proposed that the scope of the definition of wasted costs in Clause 2 be limited to circumstances where costs are incurred as a result of any failure to appear or lateness without reasonable cause on the part of any legal or other representative. After careful consideration and bearing in mind the likely circumstances when a court may wish to make a wasted costs order, the Administration agreed to the Bills Committee's proposal. Accordingly, I will move an appropriate amendment at the Committee Stage.

The scrutiny of the Bill by the Bills Committee has led to some other proposed amendments, which I will also move at the Committee Stage. They include an amendment to increase the ceiling on defence and prosecution costs in summary proceedings from $15,000 to $30,000, to reflect current general costs levels. The Bill will be amended to allow future adjustment to both defence and prosecution costs in summary proceedings to be made by subsidiary legislation.

Another amendment proposed by the Bills Committee relates to the award of costs in favour of a defendant in the event of successful appeal against sentence. Clauses 8(b) and 9(2)(b) originally provided that if the court substitutes on appeal a sentence "substantially at variance with" that passed by the court below, costs may be awarded to the defendant. The criterion of "substantially at variance with" is to be clarified and replaced by one of "less severe punishment than", which is in line with the English legislation.

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