The Criminal Procedure (Amendment) Bill 2004 will be tabled at the Legislative Council on March 17 to give our courts the power to determine the minimum jail terms to be served by certain prisoners.

It will affect 25 prisoners. Twelve are detained at Executive discretion, two are serving mandatory life sentences for murder committed while they were under 18, and 11 are serving discretionary life sentences. These prisoners have been left with no lawfully determined minimum terms since a court ruling in September 2002. In that ruling, the court held that the legislative provisions under which the prisoners' minimum terms were originally determined, were invalid.

The amendment proposes that the power to determine the relevant minimum terms should be vested in a Court of First Instance judge. The proceedings would be held in open court and determined after hearing the parties in accordance with the existing provisions of the Criminal Procedure Ordinance (Cap. 221).

The relevant prisoners will have the right to appeal. An amendment will be made to the Legal Aid in Criminal Cases Rules (Cap. 221 sub. Leg. D) to enable the prisoners to apply for legal aid.

In addition, the Amendment Bill proposes that for the 12 prisoners detained at Executive discretion and the two prisoners serving mandatory life sentences, the Court of First Instance judge should, subject to the consent of the prisoner concerned, be given the discretion to give a determinate sentence as an alternative to determining a minimum term.