Further concessions on proposed anti-subversion laws are 'most unlikely' before the draft legislation is presented to the Legislative Council, the solicitor-general said yesterday.
Robert Allcock said he expected controversial provisions concerning the banning of societies to feature in the bill, while no public interest defence would be provided for the crime of revealing state secrets.
'The bill will be produced and if there are further changes it will be through the legislative process. I think it is most unlikely there will be any other policy initiatives before the bill goes forward,' he said.
But Mr Allcock said he hoped concerns about ambiguities in the proposals would be tackled in the drafting process.
'A lot of [the concerns] are about ambiguities and grey areas and about the devil being in the details. We hope that when the bill emerges it will be reassuring rather than creating new concerns.'
The government announced a number of changes to its proposals on Tuesday, after a three-month consultation period on the proposed laws against treason, secession, sedition, subversion and the theft of state secrets. It narrowed the scope of some of the offences and abolished others, but critics said the changes did not go far enough.