IC reaffirms legality of demolition of Guia Hill wall

Officials at the Cultural Affairs Bureau (IC) are remaining firm on the legality of the disassembly of the 400-year-old city wall on Guia Hill, despite no Executive Dispatch being issued.

On June 9 evening, the aforementioned city wall was damaged while two adjacent construction projects were underway. The incident caused a landslide and disfigured several adjacent residential buildings.

After review and discussion, the IC decided to tear down 10 meters of the remainder of the city wall, citing public safety and difficulties in retention as justification. The city wall had been registered as one of the city’s historic sites and heritages.

The Cultural Heritage Protection Law states that an Executive Dispatch issued by the Chief Executive is required when certain historic artifacts, architectures or sites are proposed to be removed or dismantled.

Nonetheless, no such Dispatch has been seen so far.

On June 17, the bureau announced that four days earlier on June 13, the city’s two civil engineering bureaus discussed the handling of the matter. The three bureaus came to the consensus that part of the less intact wall should be torn down.

The proposal was then put to a discussion by the Cultural Heritage Committee on June 16. The discussion yielded unanimous support for the IC’s proposal. The disassembly started July 7.

At yesterday’s Cultural Heritage Committee meeting, President Leong Wai Man of the IC was questioned on the matter. She said no supplementary information was available as of yesterday, since the bureau had earlier issued explanations on the matter.

However, the press was not convinced because the announcement of the disassembly and the disassembly itself were about 20 days apart, which should have been sufficient time for the release of an Executive Dispatch.

Then, the IC president recapped an earlier explanation that cited the Code of Administrative Procedures, which provide for the skipping of certain procedures during emergency situations.

“After citing the legal provision [of the Code of Administrative Procedures,] we will not cite another law to avoid repetition,” Leong added.

She also said she was not worried about the exemption becoming a precedent “because it [was] a collective decision by several bureaus.”

At the committee meeting, it was also discussed that a cultural heritage monitor centre will be launched to conduct constant supervision over the conditions of local UNESCO-listed cultural heritage sites.

According to the IC, the center will be launched in the fourth quarter of the year.

Member of the committee and civil engineer Wu Chou Kit disclosed that committee members were told the center would be equipped with gadgets to assist the supervision of the sites. Such gadgets include, but are not limited to, crack and structural detectors. The reference to using public surveillance cameras, meanwhile, raised certain concerns over privacy protections.

On this, Wu highlighted that the surveillance camera system, which is under the management of the security branch of the government, has long had approval from the Personal Data Protection Office. However, it was raised that the system was not installed for this purpose.

Choi Kin Long, department head for cultural heritage at the IC, further clarified that by surveillance camera system, the IC meant internal closed circuit surveillance cameras installed within enclosed properties.

In addition, data was also sourced from several other bureaus, such as the Macao Government Tourism Office for tourism data, the weather bureau and the Environmental Protection Bureau regarding pollutant or corrosives levels. The IC will look into the possibility of employing the public surveillance camera system for heritage protection purposes, Choi admitted, adding that drones have been used regularly to monitor the conditions of local heritage sites.