TNAG-1857-FCO40-2632-Legislative-Council-of-Hong-Kong-memoranda-and-minutes-of-me-1989 — Page 86

HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL

香港立法局。 ·九八九年七月十二日

12 July 1989

34

MISS TAM: Sir, the Drug Trafficking (Recovery of Proceeds) Bill 1989 was read for the First time in this Council on 8 March 1989. The objective of the Bill is to curb drug money laundering by introducing new investigative powers to facilitate the identification of proceeds derived from drug trafficking, and by creating a new offence of assisting in the retention and concealment of such proceeds. The non-government Members of this Council welcome the new initatives aimed at attacking the assets of drug traffickers and preventing profits derived from drug trafficking to be siphoned to other legitimate lines of business. However, in view of the extensive powers provided under the Bill which enables the courts to freeze and confiscate proceeds derived from drug trafficking, sometimes from persons other than the defendant, an ad hoc group was set up by this Council to examine its provisions. The Honourable Ronald ARCULLI, the Deputy Convener, and the Honourable Mrs. Miriam LAU chaired a Chinese text sub-committee to work alongside with the group to study the Chinese version of this Bill.

The ad hoc group met a total of 15 times, including five times with the Administration, once with the banking sector and nine internal discussions before we made the recommendations to the Legislative Council in-house meeting. The Chinese text sub-committee, with assistance from the OMELCO Legal Unit, met 13 times with Law Draftsmen from the Legal Department before completing its task. I would like to register a note of thanks to all of them for the quality of their work. The group and the Administration has now agreed on a package of 21 amendments to the English version and 50 amendments to the Chinese version of the Bill and I will briefly go through some of these amendments which concern major principles, whilst my colleague, the Honourable Peter WONG, will elaborate on other points which are more of a technical nature.

This package of amendments represents a compromise reached between many different and sometimes conflicting considerations. We began our task by inviting views from professional bodies involved in an earlier draft of the Bill. These include the Hong Kong Association of Banks, the Hong Kong Association of Deposit Taking Companies, the Hong Kong Bar Association, the Law Society of Hong Kong, and the Hong Kong Society of Accountants. We received lengthy and detailed written submissions from all these professional bodies, and met representatives of the banking sector to exchange views on specific provisions in the Bill and the contents of their guidelines. The Honourable David LI will no doubt explain the position of the bankers. Our main concern is that those offering professional service to their clients in good faith should not be