XN000022-1996-12-04 — Page 5

3.

Crimes (Amendment) (No.2) Bill

Following is the speech by the Secretary for Security, Mr Peter Lai, in moving the second reading of the Crimes (Amendment) (No.2) Bill 1996 in the Legislative Council today (Wednesday):

Mr President,

I move the Second Reading of the Crimes (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill.

This Bill deals with the concepts of treason, sedition, secession and subversion which are some of the concepts covered by Article 23 of the Basic Law.

Public concerns about the precise definition of these concepts have been building up since 1995. Honourable Members of this Council, who are elected to represent the community, have since then continued to impress on the Government the need to have clear legal definitions of these concepts on our statute books at the earliest opportunity before 1 July next year.

In response to this Council's and the community's expressed concerns, we passed proposals to amend the Crimes Ordinance to the Chinese side of the Joint Liaison Group in July 1995. In July this year, we passed a draft Crimes (Amendment) Bill to the Chinese side covering the concepts of treason, sedition, secession and subversion. I also explained to the LegCo Information Policy Panel that, if we made no progress in our discussions with the Chinese side, we would explain to the public the circumstances of the disagreement.

In brief, the Chinese side considered that there is a clear difference between the adoption of existing Hong Kong laws as the laws of the Hong Kong SAR, and the enactment of laws by the Hong Kong SAR on its own in accordance with Article 23 of the Basic Law. They made it clear that they did not believe that we should make significant amendments to the Crimes Ordinance at this stage to bring it into line with the Basic Law.

We hold a different view. It is quite clear that it is the view of the community, as reflected by this Council, that we should seek to have legislation on these concepts covered in Article 23 of the Basic Law in place before 1 July 1997. We also believe that there is no reason why we should not introduce appropriate legislative amendments to the Crimes Ordinance before 1 July 1997. By producing workable legislative proposals which will need only minimal adaptation to continue beyond the transfer of sovereignty, we will indeed be facilitating the task of the future HK SAR. This will not diminish the ability of the HK SAR, under Article 23 of the Basic Law, to make laws on its own, that is to say, not to have such laws made by the sovereign power. The fact is that Hong Kong already has laws on some areas covered by Article 23; neither the existence of those laws nor any amendments to them restricts the power of the Hong Kong SAR to legislate under Article 23.