TNAG-1611-FCO40-2214-Minutes-and-Hansards-of-the-Legislative-Council-of-Hong-Kong-1987 — Page 192

(2)

8

1

In the second place, the Government knew the

timetable for the Green Paper many months

ago and

and therefore by deliberately inserting

name-dropping in the Green Paper, it was

consciously creating for itself and for

Members of this Council an unjustifiable

legislative straightjacket.

In

the time available to me, Sir, I have

endeavoured to scrutinise the Bill to the standard

required, and I shall continue to do So

truncated timetable means that I shall

present when the Bill precipitates

next week.

even though the

be unable to be

final stages

to its

I support the

principle of the proposed new

section 17, Sir, which is designed to ensure that before a

candidate in any election may state that he has the

support of a person or an organisation, he must first

obtain the written consent

of

that

person

or

Ordinance,

organisation. The present provision in the

section 16, is an inadequate preventive measure since by

the time a court injunction has been obtained forbidding

further false claims the damage has already been done

and unless there is a requirement of consent in writing,

it places an unnecessarily heavy burden

on the plaintiff

sponsor in satisfying the court that he has not given

prior consent to the defendent candidate to use his name.