The Crimes of Possession of Offensive Weapons from a Human Rights Point of View
![handle is hein.journals/honkon27 and id is 82 raw text is: THE CRIMES OF POSSESSION OF
OFFENSIVE WEAPONS
FROM A HUMAN RIGHTS POINT OF VIEW
N
Anthony M W Law'
Prior to September 1994, the mere possession of offensive weapons was
considered a serious challenge to public order in our society. The magistrates'
courts throughout the territory were inundated with prosecutions for posses-
sion of offensive weapons.' It was not until the Court of Appeal's decision in
R v Chong Ah-choi2 in September 1994 that the relevant laws become
substantively 'softer' to meet the standards demanded by the Bill of Rights. This
article examines the legislative history as well as the contents of the offences
relating to offensive weapons in Hong Kong, and questions their consistency
with accepted human rights standards in the Bill of Rights.
The legislative history of the offences of possession of offensive weapons
The major legislative provisions controlling the carrying of offensive weapons
are to be found in s 17 of the Summary Offences Ordinance ('SOO') and s 33
of the Public Order Ordinance ('POO'). Both ordinances were passed quite
some time ago by the colonial legislature (the former in 1933, the latter in 1967
when fifteen out of the 26 LegCo members were expatriates3). The SOO is not
apparently politically motivated, though it was passed not very long after the
devastating Canton-Hong Kong Strike in 1925 in protest against the massacre
of Chinese demonstrators by the British in Shakee.' Its s 17 appears to have
been enacted genuinely for the purpose of crime prevention.
The POO, however, was passed in the heated political climate of 1967 to
replace an earlier version of the same name when Hong Kong had not yet fully
recovered from the 'anti-British uprising' staged by leftists, which caused 851
casualties and widespread property damage throughout the colony.5 Alarmed
Lecturer, Department of Law, City University of Hong Kong; Barrister, Supreme Court of Hong
Kong. The author wishes to thank Professor M J A Cooray, Head of the Department of Law, City
University of Hong Kong, for his kind support and careful revision of this article and an anonymous
referee for helpful comments, as well as to acknowledge the Hong Kong Law Digests and Hong Kong
Law Yearbooks for his citation of the unreported local cases.
In the year 1993 alone, 891 persons were arrested for alleged possession of offensive weapons and
another 251 for alleged possession of unlawful instruments: see [19931 Royal Hong Kong Police
Review 84.
2 [1994] 2 HKCLR 263 (see also (1994) 4 HKPLR 375).
3 Hong Kong 1967 (Hong Kong: Hong Kong Government Printer, 1967), pp 265, 340-1.
4 Ming K Chan, 'Hong Kong in Sino-British Conflict: Mass Mobilization and the Crises of Legitimacy,
1912-26'in Ming K Chan (ed), Precarious Balance: Hong KongfBetween China and Britain, 1842-1992
(Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1994), pp 45-54.
5 Robert Cottrell, The End of Hong Kong: The Secret Diplomacy of Imperial Retreat (New York: John
Murray, 1993), pp 28-36.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/honkon27&div=13&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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The Crimes of Possession of Offensive Weapons from a Human Rights Point of View
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