Legal justification of Hong Kong Police used of force on September 27, 2014. By law researcher Yu, Wing-yee LLB Graduate of City University of Hong Kong (Class 2002). Firstly, there is a law governing the human rights of the rights and freedom of assembly: Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948. Article 20 (1) “Everyone has the right to freedom of PEACEFUL assembly and association. Article 29 (2) “In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such LIMITATIONS as are DETERMINED BY LAW solely for the purpose of DUE RECOGNITION AND RESPECT FOR THE RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS OF OTHERS, and of MEETING THE JUST REQUIREMENTS OF MORALITY, PUBLIC ORDER and general welfare in a democratic society.” The public assembly has been violated the public order and general welfare of others, the protests had obstructed the rights and freedoms of others using the public roads and facilities. According to the aforesaid, police should disperse the crowd who had obstructed the main cars’ roads, and to avoid the crowd to further damage the Government Headquarter facilities and they might break into the office buildings and might leak personal data of the general public. With reliable sources of evidence, the crowd was the first using force to attack police blockade, and was never followed police’s warning and ordered them to stay away from blockade, the crowd had been acting irrationally and using great force to push police blockade, without any intention to stop, according to the valid common law of Hong Kong Beckford v R [1987] 3 All ER 425, Privy Council, there was a justification for police officer to use of force under circumstances of his reasonable belief that his life was in danger. Therefore using pepper spray to disperse the crowd ram. And the crowd had no intention to stop the ram, police could not put the areas back into order again, since the crowd had been acting irrational and never stop attacking police. The crowd moving forward to challenge police and trying to get closer to police in arm’s length, it was too easy for the crowd to physically attack police, therefore police gave warning sign of using tear gas, but the crowd showed no interest and kept getting closer to police, therefore for the safety of policemen they had to fire tear gas to disperse the crowd. With the evidence of a public assembly outside Legislative building not long ago, police found explosives from two of the people in that assembly, therefore police had reasonable awareness of the crowd might carry explosives and might cause harm to police. The false accusation against police use of force on September 27, 2014 should be justified with legal justification not irrationally or emotionally mistaken public in the Legislative Committee. I shall send this to Security Bureau via email, and I am not a voter of any Hong Kong Elections, so please anyone can quote this message to the Legislative members.
Posted on: Thu, 09 Oct 2014 05:47:33 +0000
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