布政司署
香港下亞厘畢道
GOVERNMENT SECRETARIAT
LOWER ALBERT ROAD HONG KONG
本署檔號 Our Ref.:
SCR 1/511/87 Pt 2
來函檔號 Your Ref.:
11 February 1991
M.V. Stone Esq.
Hong Kong Department
Foreign & Commonwealth Office
King Charles Street
London SW1A 2AH
HKB 440/
RECEIVED IN REGISTRY
15 MAR 1991
DESK OFFICER
INDEX
Action
Den stile Ос
Official Secrets Act
You may know that we have recently been
considering how best to cater for the localisation and adaptation of "security" legislation covering such issues as secrets, treason, sedition, subversion etc.
In June last year the Governor's Security Committee accepted recommendations that the best way forward was to provide for the application of the 1989 Official Secrets Act to Hong Kong by Order in Council, and to deal with the localisation and adaptation of the main body of security related legislation at a later date. We intend to seek Executive Council's advice on the specific issue of the extension of the 1989 legislation to Hong Kong; a draft Executive Council memorandum, which has been cleared within the Administration, is enclosed herewith for your comments.
You will see that the argumentation for extending the 1989 Act to Hong Kong is that, because of the defects in the 1911 legislation, it is extremely unlikely that the Attorney General would bring a prosecution under Section 2 of the 1911 Act; knowledge that this section was defunct might encourage some to offend; the provisions of the 1989 legislation are more likely to be consistent with our international obligations under the ICCPR.
We had considered the case for deferring
extension of the 1989 Act and of sweeping it up in due course as part of the localisation of laws exercise to which I have referred above. However, the difficulty with this approach is that it leaves us vulnerable in the interim, and it is unlikely to help us in the end because the Chinese will no doubt prefer the more draconian measures of the 1911 Act to those of the new legislation.
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.