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Criminal Sanction Necessary for Public Order, Hong Kong Government Spokesman
Provisions relating to criminal sanction in the Public Order Ordinance are necessary to ensure that public meetings and public processions are conducted in an orderly manner, a Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government spokesman said November 25.
In response to criticism that it was unconstitutional to criminalise a peaceful assembly or procession simply on the ground of failure to give notice, the spokesman said there was little doubt that criminal sanction was required to enforce and uphold the integrity of the notification requirement of public processions and assemblies.
"Those preventive provisions are necessary to ensure that public meetings and processions are conducted in an orderly manner," he said.
The spokesman pointed out that under the Public Order Ordinance, only participants who "without lawful authority or reasonable excuse, knowingly take or continue to take part in" an unauthorized assembly would be guilty of the offense.
He stressed that freedom of peaceful assembly was not absolute but relative. "There is the question of balancing that freedom with the interests of others as recognized by International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights," he said.
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