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Following is the transcript of remarks by the Secretary for Justice, Mr Rimsky Yuen, SC, at a media session after attending the opening ceremony of Prosecution Week 2016 today (June 17):
Reporter: Do you mean actually the so-called "special force" that Lam Wing-kee has mentioned has actually breached the law and are you going to do anything to try to find out who are they? And secondly, how are you going to ease the public concern over the "one country, two systems" has been eroded already?
Secretary for Justice: To take your several questions one by one. First of all, the so-called "special unit". I am not in a position to comment whether there is in fact such a "special unit" because I have seen, or at least from the media, that there seems to be different views and suggestions about whether or not there is the existence of this "special unit" or whether the case in fact actually involved a "special unit", so I cannot comment on these specific details. But in any event, I think as I was saying just now in Cantonese that in the context of "one country, two systems" principle, I think there're two sides to this concept. One side is if one person is within the jurisdiction of Mainland China, as in any other jurisdiction, one is expected to comply with the law and subject to the law of Mainland China. On the other hand, people in Hong Kong, when they are physically in Hong Kong, they are perfectly entitled to all the legal protections that are conferred by the laws of Hong Kong, including those under the Basic Law, as well as the provisions in the Bill of Rights Ordinance. So whether or not there is any breach of the law in Mainland China, I think it's a matter we'd like to look into, or matter as to exactly what happened including the questions that you asked, is something that we'd love to find out to know more about this case, because as I was saying in Cantonese just now, the Government of the Hong Kong SAR fully appreciates the concern of the people of Hong Kong over this incident. We are also very concerned and that's why from the time we became aware of this matter, not just from last night, we have been trying to look into this matter. And as we said in the statement issued last night, the Police will try to contact Mr Lam to find out exactly what happened because it's unfortunate that some of the matters which he said yesterday at the press conference were only revealed for the first time. Previously it wasn't revealed, so obviously there's a need for the Police to follow up with the matter and contact him so as to get more information and to find out exactly what has happened before we can decide, or we can even suggest, what had been done or what should be done.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)
Ends/Friday, June 17, 2016
Issued at HKT 20:26
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