LCQ9: Law enforcement actions versus illegal federal government land profession
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Following is a concern by the Hon Andrew Lam and a written reply by the Secretary for Development, Ms Bernadette Linn, in the Legislative Council today (January 10):
Concern:
The Lands Department developed a Special Duties Task Force (Task Force) in 2019 to concentrate on managing the more major federal government land profession cases and help District Lands Offices in the New Territories in managing the more major cases of land abnormalities and other stockpile cases. As at March 2021, the Task Force finished dealing with a cumulative overall of over 800 cases with transgressors in 5 of them being founded guilty and fined. Some members of the general public have actually criticised that the conviction limit for the appropriate offenses is too expensive and the fines are too low, with some founded guilty individuals being fined just $1,000. In this connection, will the Government notify this Council:
(1) of the (i) variety of illegal federal government land profession cases gotten by the Government, (ii) variety of land control cases still being processed by it at the end of the year, (iii) variety of cases in which it finished examinations and made recommendations to police, and (iv) variety of cases in which it set up prosecutions with the illegal occupiers being founded guilty and fined, in addition to the quantities of fines enforced, in each of the previous 3 years; and
(2) whether it will examine the charges for illegal federal government land profession to boost the deterrent result; if so, of the information; if not, the factors for that?
Reply:
President,
The Lands Department (LandsD) takes enforcement actions versus illegal profession of federal government land pursuant to the Land (Miscellaneous Provisions) Ordinance and manages more than 10 000 cases a year. The variety of cases is considerable and their kind and nature differ considerably (varying from prohibited bike parking on streets, deserted cars, addition of shopfront platforms, disposing of wastes/construction wastes, transferring ties of bamboo scaffolds/skips, to the more severe cases of illegal profession of a big location of federal government land for brownfield operations or domestic structures). In view of minimal workforce resources, the LandsD needs to embrace a practical “risk-based” method to prioritise its enforcement actions, with concern offered to cases of bigger scale, more major conflicts, or cases including security or ecological health dangers.
When taking land enforcement actions, the LandsD will publish a statutory notification in accordance with the law needing the occupier to stop profession before a defined due date. If the circumstance does not surpass expiration of the due date, the LandsD will take additional actions, consisting of acquiring and clearing the home or structures staying on the land, along with thinking about setting up prosecutions versus the occupier (if the identity of the occupier can be determined with proof).
To boost the enforcement performance under the “risk-based” technique, the LandsD established the Special Duties Task Force (Task Force) in mid-2019 to step up targeted enforcement versus cases with illegal profession of big locations of federal government land or severe lease breaches including personal farming land. As at the end of November 2023, the Task Force finished a cumulative overall of over 1 500 cases, with the clearance of more than 44 hectares of unlawfully occupied federal government land and demolition of over 2 400 illegal or lease-breaching structures in overall. These cases consist of blackspots targeted by the Task Force and the stockpile cases of District Lands Offices (DLOs).
The LandsD has actually carried out a number of procedures to boost enforcement work, consisting of: tightening up the regularisation application plans for illegal profession of federal government land because March 2017, suggesting that the department no longer accepts regularisation applications for cases of illegal profession of federal government land beginning on or after March 28, 2017 and the occupiers can no longer prevent stopping profession of the land pursuant to the statutory notification through regularisation application; combining the enforcement workforce at different DLOs from April 2023 onwards, such that cases of land abnormalities in the very same district are dealt with by one single group in an integrated way; usage of drones and mobile gadgets to improve the efficiency of examinations and the total effectiveness of routine land enforcement work.
Our reply to the different parts of the Hon Andrew Lam’s concern is as follows:
(1) The pertinent figures on enforcement versus illegal profession of federal government land for the previous 3 years (i.e. from 2021 to 2023) are set out in the Annex.
(2) To boost the deterrent impact versus illegal profession of federal government land, the Government modified the Land (Miscellaneous Provisions) Ordinance in 2015 to considerably increase the charges and present a progressive system of optimum fines for duplicated wrongdoer along with a system of day-to-day fine for more powerful deterrent result versus such crime. Upon conviction, a culprit is responsible to an optimum charge of a fine of $500,000 and jail time for 6 months on the very first event (the optimum charge was a fine of $10,000 and jail time for 6 months before the change), and to an additional day-to-day fine of $50,000 for non-compliance with a statutory notification (brand-new charge). The culprit, if founded guilty on each subsequent event, is responsible to a fine of as much as $1,000,000 (brand-new charge) and jail time for 6 months (brand-new charge), and to an additional everyday fine of $100,000 for non-compliance with the statutory notification (brand-new charge).
After the change entered into result in 2015, the charges enforced by the court increased appropriately. From the figures gathered in the previous 3 years, just 5 out of the 54 founded guilty cases were fined $1,000 (one case included a little location inhabited by a deserted lorry; 4 cases included numerous individuals in charge of an organisation associated to a spiritual temple which inhabited federal government land), while 23 cases were fined over $10,000 (the greatest being $137,000). Another 3 cases was sentenced to jail time however the sentences were suspended. As the optimum fines that can be enforced by the court under the law is currently considerably greater than the fines really enforced by the court over the last few years, even more increasing the charges allowed under the law at this phase might not be an efficient method to boost deterrence.
Under the existing structure of the Land (Miscellaneous Provisions) Ordinance, it provides allowance for the occupiers to very first stop the illegal profession of federal government land themselves (and hence bear the obligation and costs of the demolition and clearance work). Prosecution will just be conjured up if the occupiers did not stop the profession before the expiration date stated in the Government’s statutory notification. It is thought that this “self-rectification” plan is among the factors representing the little number of prosecution cases. Other factors consist of that the LandsD has actually focused its resources on putting an end to such land profession to clean up the cases and for this reason less concentrated on embracing the prosecution technique, which event of proof is not effective or the proof is insufficient to determine the identity of the occupier for setting up prosecution.
We comprehend the general public’s expectation for appropriate management of public homes. In spite of restricted enforcement workforce and troubles in the collection of proof to fulfill the prosecution limit, the LandsD will evaluate how finest to use its powers under the existing legal structure and its workforce to step up enforcement and prosecution work, consisting of using innovations (e.g. drones) to improve its enforcement effectiveness, and release resources to concentrate on prosecution of severe cases (such as cases with big location of profession or those profiteering from usage of federal government land) for more powerful deterrence impact.
The Development Bureau and the LandsD will continue to keep an eye on the application scenario of the Ordinance and whether illegal profession of federal government land has actually weakened. Depending upon the efficiency of the work above, we might think about methods to boost deterrence where needed, consisting of simplifying the procedure of prosecution (e.g. by presenting other simpler methods for prosecution of such offenses).
Ends/Wednesday, January 10, 2024
Released at HKT 15:05
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