Law Excuses
When I was working in the Yuen Long District Office (1976-1980), an expatriate Administrative Officer once minuted in a file: "What a criminal waste of manpower!" As I began to learn the philosophy of law, I thought: "Is it a crime? Or should it be a crime? And which institution is the law-making body?" I knew: "ignorance of the law excuses not"!
Working as a Senior Crown Counsel in the late 1980s, I began designing Hong Kong's intellectual property system which covered both civil and criminal aspects. For "theft" of intellectual property, the general theft law was not used. Instead, specific offences were introduced to make good the deficiencies of the law in specific circumstances.
In the early 1990s, the media reported that a computer hacking law would be introduced in Hong Kong. Not knowing whether its ambit would impact on copyright protection of computer programs, senior colleagues including me engaged the responsible officials to understand the policy objectives. Mobile phones were hardly smart then.
Recently in Hong Kong, smart phone-related charges have generated a legal controversy. Unlike Scotland, Australia and certain States in the United States, "upskirting" is not yet a statutory specific offence in England and Wales or in Hong Kong. If judicial interpretation can declare a crime as is, then the public's ignorance of the law excuses?