Dennis Kwok Dismisses Extradition 'empty Promises'

The lawmaker representing the legal sector has dismissed concessions made by the government over its extradition proposals, saying they're not safeguards written into law.

Pro-business and pro-Beijing groups welcomed the changes, which include limiting extradition to crimes with minimum jail terms of seven years.

But the Civic Party's Dennis Kwok says the government only cares about the views of the business sector and not ordinary people:

"Hong Kong people are extremely concerned about this because there are no safeguards in this bill, and even yesterday the measures proposed by the secretary for security are not safeguards that will be written into the law," he said.

"I think that is the key point. They're not giving judges more powers to scrutinise extradition requests, they're not writing these safeguards into the law, I think that is the key," he said. "These are simply promises that are made by the executive that have no backing of legislation."

On Thursday, Security Secretary John Lee said rather than allowing extraditions for crimes which carry a maximum punishment of three years in prison, this will be increased to seven years behind bars.

He noted that this means extraditions under the new legislation would now not be possible for crimes involving criminal intimidation, child pornography or underage sex.

He also said that extradition requests from the mainland would only be entertained if they come from the Supreme People's Procuratorate – the highest national level organ responsible for criminal investigation and prosecution – rather than any provincial authorities.