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Commissioner of Customs and Excise to enable them to authorise searches without a warrant. Mr Martin LEE asked what the rationale for dispensing with the need for a warrant in the Prevention of Bribery Ordinance when it was enacted in 1972: he suggested that in those times there may have been fears that some magistrates were corrupt. Mr Jeaffreson said that he would examine the records and supply the Panel with an answer. Mr WONG suggested that if there was no longer a good reason for empowering the Commissioners to authorise searches without warrants a normal ex parte court-order arrangement should be adopted instead.
19.
Mr Mortimer drew Members' attention to paragraph 45, in which it was proposed that discretionary powers should be given to the Commissioner of Police and the Commissioner of Customs and Excise to select which cases should be investigated. Mr Martin LEE asked why the ICAC instead of the Police could not take on the investigations. Mr Mortimer said that this possibility had been examined, but it had been decided that in order to preserve the ICAC's independence from the Police',the ICAC should not take on such cases. To involve ICAC officers in operations which prima facie did not involve corrupt activities would be an abuse of ICAC powers under existing legislation. Mr Jeaffreson acknowledged that a number of commercial crime cases were investigated by the ICAC, but said that these all had a corruption element in them. Both Mr LEE and Mr WONG expressed concern that if the powers of selecting cases were given to one man alone there might be opportunities for corruption: they suggested that the powers of selection should be entrusted in a committee.
20.
On the question of consultation about the two options, Mr Mortimer said that the departments consulted had advised that the confiscation order proposal would be extremely difficult to implement and that the automatic indebtedness scheme would be simpler and cheaper. The Administration's conclusion was that the automatic indebtedness scheme would be more effective in the long run. The Chief Justice had, however, expressed very grave reservations about this scheme, which he had described as "very rough justice indeed". He had suggested that the maximum fine for drug trafficking should be raised instead, but the Administration's view was that even if the maximum fine was increased to, say, $10 million, it was very rare for a court to impose the maximum fine, and if the convicted person refused to pay the fine he could only be imprisoned for defaulting for a maximum of one year. The Chief Justice had also advised that assets should not be restrained without a court order and that the Commissioner of Police and the Commissioner of Customs and Excise should not have the power to freeze assets. During the consultations on the Triad Document the public had shown itself to be generally in favour of the automatic indebtedness scheme, though its views on the confiscation order scheme were not known. The general impression from the public was that something had to be done.
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