Closed-door meetings on domestic violence

The meetings of the 1st Legislative Assembly Standing Committee will continue to be held behind closed doors. Macau Conscience, led by political activist Jason Chao, had requested for the committee’s meetings to be opened to the public, but lawmakers voted against the proposal, Radio Macau reported.
“There isn’t a specific need to open the meetings to the public. The importance that society is putting on this bill cannot be used as an argument. So the majority of the committee members do not agree [with the proposal to open the meetings to the public],” said Kwan Tsui Hang, president of the AL’s 1st Standing Committee.
The lawmaker acknowledged that transparency is key in debating the domestic violence legislation. Still, she stressed that such reasoning cannot be used to justify a different handling of a particular law.
She revealed that lawmakers will be meeting with associations to debate the Domestic Violence Bill in March.
The Domestic Violence Bill passed its first reading in the AL last month and it is now being discussed in detail by the 1st Standing Committee lawmakers. Last Friday, they questioned the Social Welfare Bureau again on one of the bill’s most controversial items: cases of mild violence which are not to be considered domestic violence.
A slap or pushing someone may not be be recognized as domestic violence and therefore could be treated as a semi-public crime, whereas violent acts among family members resulting in serious consequences will be listed as public crimes, according to the new law. CP