The Immigration Department has publicly rejected a lawyer's view, expressed on what it describes as an 'entertainment TV programme', that an employer can ask her foreign domestic helper to work at her in-law's home. The programme in question, Justice for All, has become a hit since it was launched last month by TVB Jade, and many people take its on-air legal advice seriously.
The programme's winning formula is simple: present a legal issue that people encounter in their everyday life in a drama, and then ask a live audience to decide which party is at fault. A lawyer then gives his ruling. Those who got it wrong leave, while those who are right stay on to win ever more prizes. The programme has an air of authority because the Law Society arranges lawyers to appear on it.
In the episode concerned, an employer asked her helper to take soup to her in-law's home and do household work there. Drawing on a court ruling in a similar case last year, the lawyer advised that the employer breaches no law.
Alarmed that this would send the wrong message to the public, the Immigration Department, after taking legal advice from the Department of Justice, said that the law says the helper should only perform domestic duties for the employer.
It stressed that the employer should not require or allow the helper to carry out any non-domestic work, or to perform domestic work at any address other than that specified in the contract. Nor should the employer require or allow the helper to carry out any work for any other person.
'Justice for All got it wrong' was big news in many papers yesterday, even as the lawyer who appeared on the programme stood by her advice. Some papers also reported that a few legislators were concerned that it could mislead the public.
But since when have the media and our legislators become so deferential to the government, or the Department of Justice in particular? If the department's interpretation of the law could be regarded as definitive, we might as well do without the courts. Government lawyers no doubt try to argue in favour of the administration, as this is their job. However, if they were to switch sides, they could certainly come up with credible arguments against the administration.
