3. CIVILIZED COUNTRY AND UNCIVILIZED LAW ?
LAW AND DIS.....ORDER IN HONG KONG
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(by an unidentified religious )
"Hong Kong together with Japan are the only 'free' countries in Asia. This is a very popular theme in Hong Kong government's propaganda. This is what most tourists and businessmen believe Hong Kong is.
In the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, its Art.20 states: "Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association". Nevertheless, there isn't any constitution in Hong Kong, neither are there any bills asserting which are the rights of the local people. On the contrary there is a highly oppressive Public Order Ordinance "containing extensive limitations on freedom of speech and association and conferring sweeping powers on junior police officers, so drafted as to exclude, in many cases, redress in the courts for abuses" (1)
In order that a public meeting or assembly to legal, the Ordinance prescribes, a licence must be obtained from the Police. Such a licence has to be requested seven days in advance, from the Commissioner of Police.(2)
The way how the Commissioner of Police exercises his absolute discretion prohibits the holding or continence of the public gathering if it appears to him to be nec- cessary or expedient in the interest of public order (3). Besides any Police officer can prevent, stop or disperse an unlicensed public assembly or one at which there is a breach of the conditions attached to the licence.(4)
We need to remind that according to the Ordinance, a public assembly is an assembly where three or more persons meet for the accomplishment of a common purpose (5). The definition of public meeting is broad and vague enough to cover meetings such as trade union meetings, funeral services, university seminars or even dinner parties.
In cases when you are discussing school or labour problems with two friends after school or work in order to find a solution to them (common purpose) then you need a police licence delivered..... 7 days in advance.
According to the present Ordinance, citizens of Hong Kong are subjected to per- manent threat of being accused of unlawful gathering in every moment of their life on the bus, along the street, at the restaurant, at home where the police can enter the remain if they reasonably believe that an offence or a breach of the peace will be committed.
Someone may argue that the Police will interfere only when there is a real danger for the society, for the sake of the common or private good. Here is the trick. HAVING CONFERRED THE POLICE WITH SUCH A WIDE RANGE OF POWER, THEIR OWN WILL CAN BE THE LAW. Their intervention is already a judgement, we need no more laws and courts: this is a police state, a permenent marshal law.
This situation creates the mentality that the citizen has no right. The Police is always right. A very funny situation it actually is if we recall that, in the past years, the Hong Kong police has been on the first page more for cases of corruption then for acts of virtue.
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Let's finish with lawyer Patrick Chan's words: "The law of public assembly, it now stands, leaves the courts helpless in many cases.. It is no longer a law of Public Assembly, but more like a set of rules formulated by the Police..........,, It is better to have an Ordinance prohibiting all public gatherings than to implicitly recognise a right of assembly and then punish those who exercise this right."
(1) J. Rear, Hong Kong: the Industrial Colony,pp.90-91.
(2) Public Order Ordinance, 1967 Section 7 (1-2)
(3) id Section 15
(4) id Section 11
(5) id Section 2.
(6) Patrick Chan, Public Assembly- Rights and Liabilities, JUSTITIA, LAW ASSOCIATION,
University of Hong Kong, 1972-3, pp.15-24.
YMT 17
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