TNAG-1555-FCO40-2119-Broadcasting-in-Hong-Kong-1986 — Page 117

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The fundamental difficulty is one of

resources. The police response to such local manifestations of organised crime as vice and

dangerous drugs, cannot be allowed to suffer because, arguably, this is where manpower is most effective.

Furthermore, the system in Hong Kong follows the

Commonwealth tradition of maintaining a clear distinction between the investigator and the prosecutor.

THE RACKETEER INFLUENCED CORRUPT ORGANISATIONS STATUTE [RICO]

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This part of the paper discusses some of the problems associated with prosecuting persons involved with organised crime. It also discusses the response of the United States to these problems.

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Some of the problems associated with prosecuting persons involved in organised crime are

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(a)

(b)

(၁)

the rules of practice and procedure which prohibit or inhibit the prosecutor from charging accused persons with crimes that will

adequately reflect their criminality in

the context of organised crime;

in view of the limitations posed by (a), the restrictions on the evidence which a prosecutor can present and which a court will receive and consider; and

that there is no single charge known to the criminal law which penalises active criminal membership of and

participation in organised crime groups.

The rules of practice and procedure in the criminal law which inhibit or prohibit the prosecutor from charging accused involved in organised crime operate in a variety of ways. First, if accused persons are charged with a large number of substantive offences of the same kind [e.g. 10 or 15 charges of blackmail] the prosecutor may not be permitted to have all the offences tried at the same time. The courts, as a matter of practice, would order that the indictment [that is the list of charges] be severed so that each of the charges is tried separately. This would be more likely to occur if the charges, although similar, were disparate as to time of offence, victim, method of commission of the crime and so on. In short, for the purposes of trial, the law would treat each charge as separate and distinct from the others.