TNAG-0194-FCO40-230-Emergency-legislation-and-Public-Order-ordinance-discussions-1969 — Page 80

CONFIDENTIAL

VISIT OF DEPUTY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE

(SIR LESLIE MONSON)

TO HONG KONG, OCTOBER, 1969

EMERGENCY LEGISLATION AND THE PUBLIC ORDER

ORDINANCE

Note No. 7

BACKGROUND

Emergency Legislation

Nearly all emergency legislation in Hong Kong has now been either revoked or suspended. This applies both to emergency legislation which, for one reason or another, had been in force prior to the disturbances of 1967 and to the considerable body of such legislation which was brought into force during 1967 in order to deal with those disturbances. The only emergency legislation now in force in the Colony is confined to the Emergency (Detention and Deportation of Aliens) Regulations (which have been in force in one form or another since 1956 and which, in the particular circumstances

of the Colony, are required on a permanent basis because of the virtual impossibility of deporting anyone to China); and to a dozen other regulations which will be either revoked or

discontinued as soon as their provisions have been incorporated in permanent legislation. None of these remaining Regulations

is of a contentious character.

Public Order Ordinance

2. The Public Order Ordinance was brought into operation in

November 1967 at the height of the disturbances in the Colony. Its purpose was to consolidate into one Ordinance the various

provisions dealing with public order and to strengthen the law where experience had shown this to be desirable. Work on the

preparation of the Ordinance had been in progress for more than

two years prior to its enactment; account was taken in its drafting of the experience gained during the 1967 disturbances. The Governor sought our views on the draft Ordinance before its

/enactment

CONFIDENTIAL