Government withdraws draft law on extradition deal

Sonia Chan

The Secretary for Administration and Justice, Sonia Chan, stated that the government has taken the initiative to withdraw the legal draft of the so-called “Interregional Judicial Assistance in Criminal Matters”, which had been delivered to the Legislative Assembly (AL).
The draft has been withdrawn from the AL until the different territories reach a consensus. In a statement from the Government Information Bureau, Chan said the decision was made following “a change on strategy.”
Chan announced the decision on Saturday, saying that “due to big differences in the jurisdiction regimes between Macau, mainland China and Hong Kong, the discussion and the [arrival at] an agreement is taking more time than what was initially expected.”
Scott Chiang, president of the New Macau Association, said implementing the extradition deal would be akin to opening  “Pandora’s box.”
“I think at the end of the day, people in Hong Kong and Macau know that they should not be overly faithful to Beijing’s government, especially in this kind of case. That’s why we need to put extra effort into the so-called arrangement in extradition,” Chiang said, cited by TDM.
Chiang believes that the recent case of Hong Kong booksellers being detained under suspicious conditions proves that Beijing can “extradite” specific individuals without major effort on their part or opposition from local authorities.
He suggested that this may lead people to think that the mainland will not respect the rules of a hypothetical extradition agreement with the SARs.
“There is not yet an official arrangement of extradition between Hong Kong, Macau and mainland China. Even so, several agencies from mainland China are able to put their fingers wherever they like in Hong Kong or maybe in Macau, we don’t know,” Chiang added.
“Evidence suggests that now they have the means to do whatever they want, even across the border. Our fear is that, even without such arrangements, they were able to exert their influence into the two SARs.” RM