TNAG-0194-FCO40-230-Emergency-legislation-and-Public-Order-ordinance-discussions-1969 — Page 24

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convened or organized exclusively

(i)

for the purposes of any public body; or

(ii) for the purposes of carrying out any duty or exercising

any power imposed or conferred by any Ordinance;",

Explanatory Memorandum.

This Bill makes a number of amendments to the Public Order

Ordinance which are designed to clarify some provisions about which

doubt has been expressed and to relax others in order to give better

protection to the public aganist any misuse of powers or against the

possible conviction of persons innocently involved in circumstances

which constitute offences under the Ordinance.

2.

Clause 2 replaces the definition of "meeting" in the princi-

pal Ordinance so as to limit it only to those meetings where there is

a degree of organization and to exclude those meetings which are held

for any statutory purpose, such as creditors' meetings; the definition

will cover the situation where there is no prior organization but a

person assumes control or leadership of a group in a public place.

3.

It is considered desirable that the power conferred on a

police officer by subsection (1) of section 3 of the principal Ordin-

ance should be exercised on the basis of reasonable belief rather than

on the basis of the opinion of the police officer. Similarly, subsec-

tion (2) of section 3 is amended so as to ensure that when a police

officer enters any premises or place it should be "reasonably" neces-

sary for him to do so. The section is also amended so as to control the

flying of flags on vehicles and vessels, as well as on premises.