Transcript of remarks by CE at media session before ExCo meeting (with video)
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Reporter: Mrs Lam, a High Court judge criticised that it's not good government policy to make jurors to work on Saturday because it will have far-reaching implications for people in the private sector. What do you have to say to that? And can you just briefly explain why you have to postpone the discussion on the amended Stamp Duty Ordinance?
Chief Executive: Well, as far as the case concerning the juror, I have asked the Secretary for the Civil Service to look into the matter. First is I think we should have full respect of the judicial process and also to understand that it is a matter of civic responsibility to serve as a juror. So once the situation is clarified we will make a very reasonable stance to ensure that civil servants who have been called to serve as jurors will be able to serve wholeheartedly, instead of rigidly following the sort of the required time to report for duty.
About the sort of adjourning the committee stage debate on the stamp duty amendment bill in order to ensure that the government motion on co-location arrangement for the high-speed rail could be debated and hopefully passed in time, this is to take into account the very tight time frame that the co-location arrangements are being subject to, because after securing this support from the Legislative Council (LegCo), we still have to go through what we call a three-step process to ensure that the arrangements we are putting in place have very strong legal backing, and that three-step process necessitates a final step of local legislation, which by itself will take time because it also has to go through Legislative Council. So we really cannot delay or defer this LegCo debate on the co-location arrangement.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)
Ends/Tuesday, October 17, 2017
Issued at HKT 12:15
Issued at HKT 12:15
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Audio / Video
CE meets the media