Rear Window | Jumping into the crowd

Severo Portela

We would like to be able to say that out of the blue, the Legislative Assembly took the bold step to recommend to the MSAR government an overall amendment of the 1993 laws regarding the rights to public demonstrations and public meetings. But we cannot… since this move has, to some extent, followed logically from an apparently revisionist will to challenge certain legislation such as the judiciary law. Albeit the general intention is one to update and upgrade, or to reform and adapt, we have to be prudent when evaluating this ambitious aggiornamento, regardless of whether or not the package is wrapped up and labeled as a legitimate and necessary improvement in keeping with the development of society, and far from any veiled plan to discard the laws of Macau as if it was about a maladjusted cast or fundamentalist rococo.

First, we have to admit that the modus operandi strikes a note of awe at something that is usually named political strategy, and secondly, we would care to point to some potential flaws and actual worries. Phase one of the legislative amendment took the shape of an apparent innocuous replacement of the Civic and Municipal Affairs Bureau as the department to be notified of a demonstration or public meeting for the Public Security Force. However, it is a switch that would not go unnoticed anywhere else – forgive the double negative.

From this bureaucratic phase, the idea to amend the law followed sound analogy and common sense in the form of an interrogation: if we are to pick the regulatory framework to put PSP as the place to notify about demonstrations and meetings, why not take the opportunity to address other flaws?

At this point a related question emerges: flaws, what flaws? Disconnected sentencing is not only a symptom but proof that the law should be improved to avoid different verdicts on similar cases.

Should we be concerned about a revision of such an important right for MSAR people? Yes and no!

No, if we are to extrapolate a mantra from the explanation the government gave about the replacement of IACM by PSP: the change would not decrease a resident´s right to demonstrate. No, if we acknowledge that there is no draft proposal yet!

Should we worry? Yes, cautiously. When the zeitgeist seems to be one of integration we have to demand that the autonomy of the Basic Law should not be diminished vis-a-vis a particular reading that China’s constitutional framework makes of fundamental rights.

If Macau is to nurture its own system, it has to cherish article 40 of the Basic Law which grants that “the rights and freedoms enjoyed by Macau residents shall not be restricted unless as prescribed by law. Such restrictions shall not contravene the provisions of the first paragraph”- ICCPR and ICESCR.

The truth is that the dwindling numbers seen in the 2018 May First demonstrations seem to endorse that legislative priorities be given to other areas of law. Eight hundred residents voicing their concerns about Pearl Horizon or the Gaming world, plus a sole demonstrator on his own – it almost behooves one to help the solitary voice by jumping into the crowd so as not to support ideas of a hypothetical theory on representative demonstrations.

Forgive us for the gloomy note but to nurture the second system – as is the convention to address Macau autonomy – does not sit well as per the famous line of the cynical expatriate in Casablanca: we`ll always have Paris! Memories to fall back on!