A Hong Kong government proposal that will allow the city’s leader to certify criminal acts as national security offences is intended to “make the law clear,” Chief Executive John Lee has said.

Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday, Lee said the new subsidiary legislation for Hong Kong’s homegrown national security law, the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance, commonly known as Article 23, “is purely to make the law even clearer.”

Shortly after, Lee approved the subsidiary legislation during a meeting with the Executive Council, the city’s top decision-making body.

Under the new law, which was gazetted and came into effect the same day, the chief executive will be able to certify “other offences endangering national security.”

Criminal cases classified as endangering national security will have tougher court procedures, such as a higher bar for bail and trial before designated judges.

“The purpose of introducing the subsidiary legislation is to make it clear, make it much, much clearer, how offences… endangering national security under the law of Hong Kong will be so classified,” Lee told reporters on Tuesday.

“It is not intended and will not expand the definition of the offences, and it’s not adding any new offences or any new powers or punishments. It also does not expand the scope of the application of the law,” he added.

‘Sensitive’ information

Lee said the new piece of legislation would reduce “controversy or debate in court” about what constitutes national security offences.

Asked whether he was concerned about giving an impression of further centralising power into his hands, Lee said the city’s chief executive must shoulder the “important responsibility” of safeguarding national security.

Lee said he would exercise the new power with “prudence and seriousness,” but added that, as city leader, he has access to exclusive information regarding threats to national security.

A lot of activities endangering national security “are committed by state players of another place. They are professional, sophisticated, and the series of information that may be available to indicate the seriousness of the matters [is] privy to the chief executive,” he said.

“A lot of this information is sensitive and not suitable for public disclosure,” he added.

Under the government proposal, the certificate issued by the chief executive will be binding on the city’s courts and cannot be challenged.

Speaking to reporters on Monday, Secretary for Justice Paul Lam said the designation of national security offences involves “highly confidential” information that would not be available to the courts.

“The judiciary would not be capable of making such a decision,” Lam said.

Asked whether the chief executive’s certificates will be announced, Lam only said “people will know” as court proceedings are open to the public.

“If you see designated judges or other special arrangements in a trial, you will know” that the case has been designated as relating to national security, he said.

A Hong Kong official has confirmed that the justice minister sent an internal memo urging department staff to provide information on the sources of allegations of a top government prosecutor’s misconduct.

Deputy Secretary for Justice Horace Cheung confirmed on Wednesday the existence of the internal memo sent by Secretary for Justice Paul Lam on Tuesday.

Cheung also warned the media against asking about unsubstantiated claims, lest such questions fuel those accusations. Continuing to ask about the “unsubstantiated allegations… would only fuel those accusations,” he said, Ming Pao reported.

Cheung appeared to be referring to overseas activist Frances Hui’s allegations that Director of Public Prosecutions Anthony Chau used public funds to pursue a romance with a female subordinate.

Hong Kong authorities have since slammed the viral claims, saying the allegations amounted to “malicious smearing.”

‘Unsubstantiated’

In the English-language memo, which circulated on social media, Lam told Department of Justice (DoJ) staff that he knew messages containing “unsubstantiated allegations against the colleagues involved had been widely circulated both within and outside DoJ.”

“I am most alarmed that those allegations were allegedly based on information provided by ‘insiders’. I have to say that I will be very upset and disappointed if this was true,” he wrote.

Echoing an earlier DoJ statement on Saturday, the justice chief said the matter had been reported to the police and that actions would be taken “if necessary depending on the result of the investigations.”

He also requested that DoJ staff not republish “any message containing those allegations” against Chau, reaffirm the department’s stance if asked about the matter, and disclose any “useful information concerning the source of the allegations” to the department.

Lam also said that the DoJ “always requires its staff to uphold utmost integrity” and that the department has procedures for colleagues to raise concerns and make complaints against suspected misconduct, adding that anonymous complaints would be “unhelpful.”

Neither Lam nor Cheung said whether the department would look into the misconduct allegations against Chau.

Cheung also told journalists on Wednesday that he would not comment further on the incident to avoid “encouraging unhealthy trends.”

In an e-mail response to HKFP’s enquiry, the DoJ confirmed the existence of the memo but said it “has no further comment to make on the matter.”

Chau was the prosecutor in high-profile national security cases, such as those involving the 47 democrats and pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai.

The DoJ also said on Saturday that the allegations against Chau “are completely without factual basis, entirely fabricated, and constitute malicious smearing.”

“It is ill-intentioned for someone to maliciously spread rumours online… and to deliberately smear dedicated prosecutors who perform duties in safeguarding national security,” the statement read.