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Lawmaker Elizabeth Quat says the government has already taken a lot of views on board on the issue. Photo: Edmond So

Lawmaker dismisses call for fresh public hearing on Hong Kong’s proposed immigration law changes

  • Elizabeth Quat, chairperson of Legco committee on the bill, says written submissions identifying concerns on the matter are enough
  • The city’s human rights advocates and lawyers had earlier called for new public hearing on the bill

Pro-establishment lawmaker Elizabeth Quat on Friday dismissed the need for a fresh public hearing on Hong Kong’s proposed immigration law changes that would tighten the procedures to claim asylum and grant officers new powers to carry guns and steel batons at a detention centre for immigrants.

Quat, also the chairperson of the Legislative Council committee on the bill, said it had already been decided that written submissions identifying concerns on the matter were enough.

“The government has already taken a lot of views on board,” Quat said, pointing to public hearings held when amendments to the Immigration Ordinance were first proposed in 2018.

The city’s human rights advocates and lawyers had earlier called for a new public hearing on the bill.

The government said the bill was needed to improve the screening procedures for non-refoulement claims, and enhance measures for law enforcement, removal and detention.

Under international human rights law, non-refoulement is the principle of not sending someone to a place where they may be persecuted or tortured.

Among the proposals included in the new bill is one granting officers the power to carry guns and steel batons at a detention centre for immigrants in Tuen Mun, and another that critics say opens the door to the indefinite detention of asylum seekers.

The public was invited to submit written submissions by Tuesday, and human rights groups, lawyers, a district councillor, a church and the Hong Kong Bar Association were among those taking the opportunity to raise concerns about the proposed law.

Lawmaker Holden Chow feels it is necessary to amend the law to tackle abuses of the existing mechanism. Photo: Edmond So
The Bar Association expressed “deep concern” in particular about the provisions related to detention.

“These provisions would result in arbitrary and unjustified immigration detention in circumstances that are incompatible with fundamental human rights and long-standing common law principles,” the legal body said, urging the committee to drop the proposal.

The group’s submission also raised concerns that many of the bill’s proposals would diminish the fairness of the screening process and “bring little or no reduction in overall processing time.”

Other advocates have accused the government of rushing the proposed law forward.

The Refugee Concern Network, a group of more than 16 civil society organisations and individuals advocating for refugees and asylum seekers in Hong Kong, called for a public hearing that would take place via video conference.

“We want to give a human voice to this debate. We want to raise awareness that refugees and asylum seekers in Hong Kong are people who are not here by choice,” said Virginie Goethals’, co-founder of Rebuild, Unite, Nurture (RUN).

Former opposition lawmaker Fernando Cheung Chiu-hung agreed public hearings were “always necessary” and since they could be held online, “there’s really no excuse for the Bills Committee to skip it.”

No interpreters, indefinite detention? Hong Kong immigration bill draws critics

“Many asylum seekers may not be able to write or don’t have access to a computer and therefore would be denied the opportunity to give their views,” he added.

In his submission, human rights lawyer Mark Daly said “substantial parts of the proposed amendments” had not been raised in 2018 or 2019, and only became known publicly when the bill was published in the gazette on December 4.

With past legislation, Daly argued, there had been “genuine dialogue with key stakeholders”, such as the UNHCR, the Law Society, the Bar Association and local NGOs as well as proper scrutiny by informed legislators, including the legal sector.

“With this rushed process and without public hearings, the result will be poor quality, unfair and one-sided decision-making that may result in more litigation,” he said.

The Refugee Concern Group, meanwhile, took issue with complaints by authorities that the provision of interpreters for claimants who they believed could speak English caused unnecessary delays.

The ability to speak a language does not equate to the ability to understand complex legal proceedings in that language, the group argued in its submission.

The Department of Immigration currently has 11 interpreters under contract.

According to Daly, the proposed provisions, which include shortened timelines, changes to interpreter access, and prolonged detention, would only make lawyers’ jobs more challenging.

“These are all important bricks in the whole wall … which is going to be made more difficult,” he said.

Hong Kong does not treat people fleeing their home countries as “asylum seekers” or “refugees”, but rather as undocumented immigrants, as the city is not a signatory to the UN Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol.

However, people arriving in Hong Kong can still file a non-refoulement claim, after which they are assessed by a screening mechanism to decide whether they should be repatriated or allowed to remain, pending formal refugee claims handled by the UN.

Human rights lawyer Mark Daly. Photo: SCMP

The acceptance rate is less than 1 per cent, significantly lower than the global average of 30 per cent.

Following a comprehensive review of the system to speed up the process, the Immigration Department managed to clear 22,988 claims by December of last year. According to government figures, there are about 13,000 asylum seekers remaining in Hong Kong.

After the Immigration Bill was gazetted, it was debated twice on December 16, with the second session ending early. A date to resume the debate had yet to be set.

Pro-establishment lawmakers have argued it was necessary to amend the law to tackle abuses of the existing mechanism.

“Claimants with no genuine grounds often abuse the system by using delaying tactics, for example, deliberately refusing to turn up to interviews, and as a result of that abuse, we end up wasting an enormous amount of public resources,” said DAB lawmaker Holden Chow Ho-ding, pointing to the approximately HK$950 million (US$122 million) the government spent last year on non-refoulement claims.

Hong Kong a ‘hard place’ for asylum seekers

Michael Tien Puk-sun, another pro-establishment lawmaker, also agreed the cost was too high. “Administrative changes are needed to speed up the approval process,” he said.

The new bill’s authors say it will ensure that non-refoulement claims and relevant appeals are handled as efficiently as possible while meeting the high standards of fairness required by law, but will remove unsuccessful claimants from Hong Kong as soon as possible.

But senior pastor Andrew Gardener of the Vine Church in Wan Chai countered in his submission that time-saving measures such as making preliminary repatriation arrangements with the consulates of claimants’ home countries could be potentially dangerous and “cannot be justified solely on the grounds of efficiency.”

Tien disagreed, saying he supported the suggested change because the passport application process for an unsuccessful claimant could take as long as six months in some cases.

In a January 20 blog post, Secretary for Security John Lee Ka-chiu announced a new detention facility, the Tai Tam Gap Correctional Institution, would soon be up and running, with capacity for 160 detainees.

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Lawmaker rules out new hearing on immigration law
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