Remarks by SJ at media session (with video)
Following are the remarks by the Secretary for Justice, Mr Paul Lam, SC, at a media session at the "Rule of Law: The Best Business Environment" under Hong Kong Legal Week 2024 today (November 8):
Reporter: How effective is incorporating a new mediation clause into government contracts? What additional resources are needed and how much time or money does it actually save? And what sort of government contracts will it benefit the most?
Secretary for Justice: It would be a general policy that in the future, all government contracts will contain a mediation clause. The fact is that in case any dispute arises, the Government will try to resolve those disputes by mediation first, and only if mediation fails may we resort to litigation, arbitration or other means of dispute resolution. I am very confident that if people are willing to use more mediation to resolve disputes, that will certainly save time and cost, because I am speaking from experience.
The importance of this policy is to show to people that the Government is willing to take the lead in the hope that we can cultivate the culture in society as a whole. So whenever people encounter disputes, the first thing that they would consider is not to go to court, but instead to try to resolve disputes by mediation, by a means which in our belief is more economical, more time-saving, and resulting in a more harmonious result. So I think that is my answer to your question.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the remarks.)
Meeting attendance of members of District Councils in 2024
The Home Affairs Department (HAD) made the following clarifications today (January 2) regarding certain media reports on the meeting attendance of the current-term members of the District Councils (DCs) in 2024:
(1) The current-term DC members were diligent in their work, with over 98 per cent of 470 members having attended all DC meetings or were only absent with the DC's consent; over 90 per cent having attended all committee/working group meetings or were only absent with the DC's consent. Aside from attending DC meetings, each DC member on average attended 28 committee/working group meetings;
(2) all DC members fulfilled the requirement under the Performance Monitoring Guidelines for Members of the DCs (the Guidelines), i.e. attendance rate of not lower than 80 per cent and no DC members were in violation of the requirement; certain reports were incorrect in stating that some DC members were in violation of the Guidelines due to their absence at meetings since absence at an individual meeting was not a violation in itself; and
(3) for the purpose of calculating attendance, the Guidelines stipulate certain reasons for absence that would be consented by the DCs, including sickness and attendance at another meeting or an activity on behalf of the DCs etc. If a DC member were absent from meetings due to the aforementioned reasons with the DC's consent, the absence would not affect his/her attendance rate. If a DC member were absent from meetings due to other reasons (i.e. personal matters), the absence would be counted towards his/her attendance rate.
The HAD hoped that media outlets and members of the public would have an accurate understanding of DC members' attendance situation at meetings. The current-term DC members' attendance rate at meetings was the highest amongst all previous terms, which fully demonstrated DC members' efforts and work in improving governance at the district level.
