Amnesty For Law Breakers Not New: Anson Chan

Former chief secretary, Anson Chan, says Carrie Lam's claim on Tuesday that the extradition bill is "dead" will do nothing to ease tensions in society.

She said the Chief Executive's refusal to withdraw the bill reflected her "stubborn" character and that an independent inquiry is needed so lessons can be learned from the affair.

Chan also told RTHK that there is a precedent for meeting another key demand of protesters: amnesty for those involved in clashes with police.

"We've done it before in the mid-1970s after the setting up of the ICAC." She said, "The police, actually 2,000 of them, surrounded the ICAC building demanding the government draw a line" before enacting the Prevention of Bribery Ordinance bill.

She said that "after consideration, the then governor, Lord MacLehose, actually granted an amnesty" for corrupt police officers.

The government's proposed changes to the Fugitive Offenders Ordinance would have enabled one-off extradition deals to be struck with any jurisdiction in the world on a case-by-case basis.

But there are widespread fears in Hong Kong that the new legislation would allow the mainland authorities to demand the surrender of Beijing critics, and it would remove the firewall between the very different judicial systems on either side of the border.