Hong Kong’s national security law refinement aims to plug loopholes

Enhancing national security has always been an ongoing priority rather than a completed task for Hong Kong following the introduction of the statute in 2020. This has been made clear by Beijing when the authorities take stock of their work on this front. The latest move to enact subsidiary laws that clarify what constitutes national security cases is an example.

The move involves a classification mechanism for “other offences endangering national security”, which would include any case accompanied by a certificate from the city leader confirming it involved national security. Any alternative offence faced by a defendant in a national security case will also be classified as such.

Currently, the chief executive has the power to issue a certificate confirming whether an act or matter involves national security or whether any material contains state secrets. Such a certificate can allow a case to be tried by designated judges instead of a jury.

The subsidiary legislation will undergo a negative vetting process and come into effect on the day of its gazettal. The government said it would complete the legislative process “as soon as possible”, without specifying a timeline. The introduction of the mechanism is worth supporting as it can help define the scope of national security cases. This is a necessary move to avoid unnecessary confusion and, more importantly, to plug possible loopholes amid intensifying geopolitical complexity and the latest technology developments.

It is also an efficient legal way to keep the legislation updated. It helps refine details of the relevant procedural matters and provide greater certainty to the implementation of the national security law.

This is not the first time steps have been taken in relation to the implementation of the national security law. Following a minor technical amendment related to frozen property in 2023, the government gazetted in March the first substantial changes to the implementation rules of the national security law, under which Hongkongers who refuse to provide passwords for smartphones or other electronic devices during national security investigations face up to a year in jail and a HK$100,000 (US$12,630) fine. Those changes also allow police to question organisations if they have a reasonable belief that they are overseas political groups or agents of foreign forces.