Beijing and Hong Kong sign deal on notification procedures when residents are detained
Commitment made to informing respective governments within seven working days
Hong Kong and mainland China have secured a breakthrough deal to set up a faster notification system with a clear timetable for when residents are criminally detained by the other side.
Both committed to informing each other within seven working days when someone is being held for minor crimes, offering greater transparency on an issue that caused uproar two years ago when five booksellers mysteriously disappeared.
The agreement was signed on Thursday during the second day of Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor’s three-day maiden duty visit to Beijing.
Lam and China’s minister of public security, Zhao Kezhi, witnessed the signing by Hong Kong Secretary for Security John Lee Ka-chiu and Sun Lijun, director of the office of Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan affairs at China’s Ministry of Public Security.
“The existing mechanism has been in place since 2001,” Lee said after the ceremony. “After 16 years, we feel it is time to revise it.”
Under the new deal, either side must notify the other within seven working days of imposing “criminal compulsory measures” on a suspect such as arrests, detention or prosecution. The time limit also applies to notifications about unnatural deaths after confirmation of the person’s identity.