XN000022-1997-02-27 — Page 11

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Governor: I can only repeat what I've said. That we don't wholly agree with the honourable gentleman about our own law being out of line with the international covenant and the Bill of Rights. The honourable gentleman will know that one reason why we have carried out this very comprehensive review of laws, which I think has led so far to about 38 different parts of ordinances being changed, maybe slightly more than that now, one reason why we carried out that review is that we didn't want to be taken to court over existing laws which it could be argued were out of line with our international obligations as applied to Hong Kong law through the Bill of Rights. I think the fact that we haven't been subjected to a legal challenge on that particular point may speak volumes but I'm not encouraging the honourable gentleman to take legal advice.

Mr Zachary Wong (in Chinese): Thank you Mr President. Yesterday at Tin Shui Wai, once again there was another unidentified gas incident and that was the fourth time within a year and this time around even more people were affected. Eight schools were affected and so I would like to get confirmation from the Governor. Yesterday whether any government department, whether CSD or the British military force or any other government departments were practising the firing of tear gas in the firing range in Castle Peak? I would like to get confirmation on that.

And secondly, what measures will the Government take in order to identify the cause of the gas incident and to take measures to prevent a recurrence of such incidents?

Governor: Well now that I've had notice of that question, which I suppose imaginatively one could relate to housing, the welfare of the elderly and human rights, in one way or another, I'll seek to reply to it in appropriate detail,

I very much doubt whether the British Garrison were firing tear gas yesterday because they did have the Secretary of State for Defence with them.

Mr Zachary Wong (in Chinese): Of course it's related to housing because the entire neighbourhood was affected and all the residents were affected. So I would like to make a recommendation because similar things have happened elsewhere in Hong Kong and of course the frequency in Tin Shui Wai is particularly high and afterwards no cause has been identified and it seems that there is no way to identify the cause. And so I would like to suggest that maybe the EPD should set up a working group to really look into this in depth because previous incidents have not returned any causes and investigations have not returned any causes.