Coronavirus: Hong Kong health chief will have power to nullify ‘problematic’ jab exemptions from Wednesday
- The amendments will be submitted to the Legislative Council for negative vetting, meaning lawmakers will vote on them after legislation takes effect
- A spokesman says government has duty ‘to plug the loopholes’ to provide a clear legal basis
Hong Kong’s health chief will have the power to invalidate Covid-19 vaccination exemption letters from Wednesday, after the government amended the law in response to a court ruling that banned the move.
A government spokesman on Tuesday said authorities had decided not to file an appeal against a High Court ruling last Friday that prevented the administration from revoking more than 20,000 exemptions issued by seven doctors suspected of malpractice, as it was not the “most appropriate solution”.
“The government has sought legal advice and taken the urgency of the anti-epidemic efforts, the duration of litigation involved in an appeal and the validity period of exemption documents in question into account,” the spokesman said.
“[We] have decided that the most appropriate solution is to amend the law instead of filing an appeal, which is in the best interest of Hong Kong.”
The spokesman said the amended regulation would take effect on Wednesday. The amendments will also be submitted to the Legislative Council for negative vetting, meaning lawmakers will vote on them after the updated legislation takes effect.
The amendment will empower the health secretary to nullify vaccination exemption letters if there are reasonable grounds to suspect a medical practitioner had failed to conduct clinical assessments before issuing the documents.
The health secretary would also be able to annul all the exemptions distributed by certain doctors, he added.
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Six doctors were arrested last month for allegedly issuing exemptions, sometimes hundreds each day, without conducting proper consultations. Two have been charged while a seventh practitioner is still wanted by police.
At the time the government said it would nullify more than 20,000 medical certificates issued by the doctors in question, prompting former civil servant Kwok Cheuk-kin, who has a history of challenging government decisions in court, to file a judicial review against the move.
Ruling in favour of Kwok last Friday, Mr Justice Russell Coleman said he could not identify the source of power given to the health secretary to impose such a drastic measure.
With exemption letters, patients would not be subject to the vaccine pass scheme, which at present requires residents to have had at least three doses of a Covid-19 vaccine to enter premises such as restaurants, bars and gyms.
The spokesman added that under the new law before voiding the documents, the health secretary must consider all factors, including whether the vaccine pass scheme was flawed or its “resilience” had been compromised, the doctors in question had carried out clinical assessments, the number of documents issued in a specified period of time, the mode and method of issuance, as well as the opinion of the Department of Health’s director.
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“The vaccine pass is a crucial tool to combat the pandemic and protect public health,” he said. “The government has the responsibility to plug the relevant loopholes to provide a clear legal basis, preventing those who may not fit the original intent of the exemptions from using the documents.”
Barrister Albert Luk Wai-hung believed the new law would put the government on sound legal footing and could withstand any potential new challenge from Kwok Cheuk-kin.
“The way they draft the law would be quite tight to close the loopholes I expect,” he said. “The episode will leave a bad perception on public minds, but the government is clearly trying to mitigate that by claiming it is acting on public health grounds to protect the public.”
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Respiratory medicine expert Dr Leung Chi-chiu, a former chairman of the Hong Kong Medical Association’s advisory committee on communicable diseases, said even if the law offered the relevant power, authorities had the duty to ensure this would be exercised on reasonable grounds and due process would be followed.
He added that authorities still had to look at the eligibility of all exemption holders in the city, which amounted to around 40,000.
Hong Kong on Tuesday logged 5,221 Covid-19 infections, 454 of which were imported, and 10 more related deaths, taking its tally to 1,886,228 cases and 10,343 fatalities.
