The Judiciary today welcomed the Commerce & Economic Development Bureau's first round of public consultation on the review of the Control of Obscene & Indecent Articles Ordinance.

The Judiciary strongly believes the review should address the problems concerning the existing statutory set-up of the Obscene Articles Tribunal and the existing system of the Tribunal's adjudicators.

The solutions to the problems are removing the administrative classification function from the Judiciary, leaving the tribunal within the Judiciary to deal only with judicial determination; and replacing the adjudicators system in the tribunal with the jury system.

The Judiciary does not consider it appropriate for it to perform the administrative function of classification at all, or to draw up administrative guidelines to supplement the definition of "obscenity" and "indecency". 

It also considers that the adjudicators system should be entirely replaced with the jury system rather than merely retaining the adjudicators system but drawing the panel of adjudicators from the jury list.

The Judiciary strongly supports the proposal to separate the tribunal's administrative and judicial functions. This would address the fundamental problems with the existing statutory set-up of the body.

Whether such administrative classification function should be taken up by an executive agency, an administrative tribunal or any other body is a policy matter for the Administration.

Click here for details.