Anti-crime gimmicks
20 JUN 1973 CM
slammed
Barrister Litton
"rule
of law" is suffering.
A LEADING Hongkong barrister today attacked the much-lauded Fight Violent Crime Campaign as a publi- city stunt full of rock and roll jingles, of fanfares and trumpets.
The attack came from Mr Henry Litton, a member of the Bar Associa- tion.
He accused Government of attacking "the rule of law in Hongkong" to make the campaign a
success.
It was one of the toughest criticisms yet of Government's campaign tactics.
He said the whole debate had now become "over dramatised."
And Government spokesmen, he said, were partly to
blame for the "heat and clamour".
He referred to a speech made by Kowloon District Police Commander - Grace a month ago.
In the speech Mr Grace referred to Government's critics as "professional police-baiters" and "professional police bashers... who see nothing right in anything done by the Government or the Police."
Mr Litton went on in his lunchtime speech to the Lion's Club of Bayview: "It is a pity that the debate should at times degenerate into such low levels...
"It becomes a manifesta- tion of hysteria when res- ponsible and constructive criticism is brushed aside as 'police baiting' and 'police bashing","
He said it was not a question of whether one believes or does not believe in the campaign.
"This polarisation of the argument, me, smacks of intolerance." said Mr Litton.
to
He discussed some of the bills,
introduced simultaneously
Laina
"The Government was wrong to have introduced the laws to cut down trial by jury in Hongkong in spear-heading the campaign.
"In the first place. I cannot see how it assists the campaign by tinkering with the machinery of criminal justice in the courts."
He pointed out that District Courts, which sit without a jury, will now be able to sentence offenders to seven years jail.
"We are supposed in Hongkong to have a scrupulously fair judicial system.
"And yet the Government, along with the rock-and-roll jingles and the fanfares and the trumpets. is quite prepared to undermine one of the foundations of the common law system of criminal justice: namely trial by jury.
"And this, in the teeth of the stongest protests from the ex-Chief Justice, Sir Ivo Rigby."
He went on: "Has a note of not crept into the hysteria campaign?
**Have slogans and gimmicks not absorbed most of the energy which should be given to thought
and
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