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A bill which seeks to raise the minimum age of criminal responsibility will be introduced by the Administration, a Government spokesman said today (October 31).

According to the Juvenile Offenders (Amendment) Bill 2001, which has been endorsed by the Chief-Executive-in-Council, the minimum age of criminal responsibility will be raised from seven to 10 years of age and the rebuttable presumption of doli incapax (i.e. incapable of committing a crime) will continue to apply to children of 10 and below 14 years of age.

These proposals are recommended by the Law Reform Commission (LRC) in its Report on "The Age of Criminal Responsibility in Hong Kong" published in May 2000. The recommendations were made after a public consultation exercise and a telephone survey conducted in 1999 on the law regarding the age of criminal responsibility and the presumption of doli incapax.

The majority of respondents to the public consultation exercise and the telephone survey supported an increase in the minimum age of criminal responsibility. The principal argument for raising the present minimum age is that a seven-year-old child is too young to be able to appreciate the gravity and criminal nature of his actions. A child at the age of 10 or below is also unlikely to have attained the necessary skills to judge what is right and wrong and to fully realize the serious consequence of his actions.

The LRC report also remarks that subjecting a young child to full panoply of the criminal justice system is neither fair nor in the interest of the child. Children below 10 are generally thought to be incapable of comprehending criminal proceedings. The traumatic experience of being prosecuted and convicted at such a young age, which will result in a criminal record, will also stigmatise the child and the undesirable effect may last life long.

"Although the existing laws provide that children aged between seven and 14 are liable to be prosecuted, the majority of the criminal cases involving children below 10 have been dealt with by alternatives other than prosecution, mainly the Police Superintendent's Discretion Scheme (PSDS)," the spokesman said.

The limited number of crimes committed by children under 10 years of age and the nature of offences committed also do not support maintaining the existing age of criminal responsibility. Empirical statistics show that the number of children aged seven to nine arrested for crimes from 1993 to 2000 remain consistently low,ranging from 139 cases in 1999 to 201 cases in 1994. A significant majority of these arrested children committed minor offences such as shop theft.

"While overseas experience indicate considerable disparity among different jurisdictions as to the minimum ages, ranging from seven to 18 years, Hong Kong's minimum age is found to be at the lowest end," the spokesman said.

In recent years, the United Nations Committees established to monitor implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) have all called for a review of our law on the minimum age, although the Committees have not stipulated a specific age which should be adopted.

Besides proposing to raise the minimum age to 10, the Administration also proposes that the rebuttable presumption of doli incapax should continue to apply to children of 10 and below 14 years of age. This is supported by about two-thirds of the respondents in the consultation exercise.

The rebuttable presumption of doli incapax allows discretion so as to take account of the individual child's level of maturity and provides adequate flexibility to take care of those children who have reached the minimum age but are insufficiently mature. Retaining the presumption also ensures that only mature children who are able to appreciate that their criminal acts are seriously wrong will be made criminally responsible.

The Bill will be published in the Gazette on November 2 and introduced into the Legislative Council on November 14.

End/Wednesday, October 31, 2001

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