When the police arrest someone, you can say whether man or woman, how old, and in connection with what alleged crime. But you cannot name that person or even hint at a name. Only when that person is charged with the crime can you publish his or her name and then you must be careful never even to hint that he or she is guilty unless convicted in a court of law.

It's a very good rule and someone ought to tell the Independent Commission Against Corruption about it some day. It happens much too often, when this bunch pounces on a victim, that we get full name, photos and explicit accusations blazoned in every newspaper and media channel immediately.

And then a day or two later we hear that our bribery watchdogs are no longer holding the supposed villain. Nothing more happens except that yet another person has had his good name besmirched.

The police, the most common target of the charade, are sick and tired of it and have made that point several times to the ICAC, even backing it up last year with their own raid on the ICAC. It does not seem to have done much good.

But I think they may have gone too far this time. They have had to ask the Department of Justice for fresh legal advice two weeks after arresting former chief secretary Rafael Hui Si-Yan and the two Kwok brothers of Sun Hung Kai Properties.

We now also have 'informed sources' (some people are as loath to name themselves as they are ready to name others) say it is 'an extremely complex case' and bail for the three men has been extended.

There is nothing complex about the basic point at issue here. Either the ICAC has the goods on these three, in which case it ought to bring charges immediately, or that word 'complex' means another misfire, in which case it should have done more sleuthing work before staging a big, showy arrest.

This is, in fact, the way it should be done with any ICAC arrest, but it is particularly important in this case because it is not only three prominent individuals whose reputations will have suffered if it all turns out to be nonsense again. It is Hong Kong's own reputation that is now at stake.

That much was clearly made evident when Premier Wen Jiabao felt it necessary at his first official meeting with our chief-executive-elect Leung Chun-ying to speak of the danger of public corruption.

Normally we would laugh. What is this? The pot calls the kettle black? It is the mainland that has the serious corruption problem. We have dealt with it in Hong Kong by paying public officials top rates so that they will no longer be so strongly tempted and by setting the ICAC to act against corruption.

And now a big arrest hoopla staged by the ICAC has made Hong Kong corruption a matter of renewed concern to the world.

Very well, I can say nothing against this if there is a solid case behind it. If corruption is indeed still a big problem here, let's stamp it out. We do ourselves no good by suppressing the news of it. Let's be forthright about this.

But, in so high profile a case, with Hong Kong's own good name at stake and with even the premier of China feeling it necessary to voice concern, the ICAC should have made sure this time that it had incontrovertible proof locked down tight before it acted.

This is not what I see, however, with two weeks gone since the arrests, with more advice sought from others and with weasel talk of 'extremely complex case'.

Charge them or publicly renounce this case, fellas.

And apologise to all of us for the damage to Hong Kong's good name if you drop it.

And do it properly the next time.