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BACKGROUND NOTE
CONFIDENTIAL
HONG KONG'S PUBLIC ORDER ORDINANCE
1. Under the Public Order Ordinance, any group of more than two people intending to hold a public meeting or procession must apply to the Commissioner of Police at least seven days in advance for a permit. The object of this legislation is to ensure that, in Hong Kong's crowded conditions, the Commissioner of Police has adequate time to ensure that demonstrations cause the least inconvenience to other members of the public. The purpose is not to prevent demonstrations taking place: requests for permits are almost invariably granted.
2. The Ordinance is worded in a way which leaves the police wide discretion to decide what constitutes a public demonstration. They have in the past been very reluctant to invoke the law, normally preferring to persuade unauthorised gatherings to disperse. However, in January this year a group of boat squatters from the Yau Ma Tei Typhoon Shelter in Kowloon assembled to go to the Governor's residence to present a petition in support of their campaign for rehousing. They were warned that, since no permit had been obtained under the Public Order Ordinance, their action was unlawful. However, they declined to disperse, and instead set out in two coaches to present their petition. The coaches were later stopped and 76 people were arrested. The 66 adults among them were later found guilty of unlawful assembly. The 56 boat people were given absolute discharges; the others (who included social workers and students) were fined.
3. 10 of those convicted appealed, on the grounds that it was absurd to claim that a group of people in a bus constituted an unlawful public assembly: if this were true, then groups of tourists on conducted coach tours were breaking the law. In dis- missing the appeals, the Appeal Court Judge confirmed that it did indeed appear to be the case that, under the law as it stood, groups of tourists in buses could be considered to constitute unlawful
assemblies. As a result of this verdict, the matter was raised in the Hong Kong Legislative Council on 9 May, when the Hong Kong
CONFIDENTIAL
/Attorney-
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