'Substantive rights of defendants not affected'

Executive councillor and senior counsel Ronny Tong said subsidiary legislation clarifying the classification mechanism for "other offences endangering national security under the law of the HKSAR" will not affect the substantive rights of defendants. Speaking on RTHK's Backchat programme after the subsidiary legislation came into effect this week, Tong said that there had been no guidelines previously on the procedure to be followed in a criminal case that did not involve any national security offences but might have some national security interests or concerns. "What I think the government is trying to do is lay down a clear indication or guideline that in relation to those cases, they should follow the same procedure that one follows in relation to national security offence cases," he said. "And since this is simply a change or improvement of procedure, it doesn't affect the substantive rights of the defendant. "It does not affect the nature of the offence, it does not affect the punishment to be dished out in the case of a conviction, and it doesn't deal with or change the governing principles regarding those offences." Tong also said moving forward, there might be a need to consider amending the law to include new conducts that pose a threat to national security. "Conviction of an offence and a threat to national security are two different things. And sometimes – although it may be very rare – a threat to national security may not constitute a criminal act. It all depends on how the criminal act is framed by the legislature. "It might mean that in the future, we might find that there are conducts which constitute a threat to national security but it's not yet a national security offence, then we may need to consider amending our national security law to include that conduct." Edited by Edmond Fong