TNAG-0233-FCO40-269-Legislation-relating-to-registration-of-trade-unions-in-Hong-1970 — Page 82

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office, of people who have been convicted of violence and offences against public order. Here of course, the position is that in the present law there is the power to disbar for a number of offences, for life; and what the draft bill does is to reduce this period of disbarment from life to 5 years. So in a very real sense it is a relaxation of the existing law and a deliberate relaxation of the existing law. This has been a clause in which

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I know there has been a great deal of difficulty over the drafting, trying to find suitable forms of words, and the one suggestion which has come up is, we might drop out the words 'public order' which is perhaps not very clearly defined. know that the Commissioner of Labour is thinking about this and reconsidering whether this particular clause can be slightly rephrased in some way to meet the objections to it. The bill incidentally, in its present form, unamended, has been to the labour advisers in London.

The bill is a draft bill prepared by the Commissioner of Labour for comment, and there is no need for anybody to get excited about it. Once the comments have been digested, and any amendments made, then it will go to the Executive Council; and not until it gets there, is it in any sense legislation.