Police To Appeal Against Officer ID Ruling

Police Commissioner Chris Tang says the force will appeal against the High Court's ruling last Thursday that officers' failure to show their identification numbers constituted a breach of the Bill of Rights.

Speaking to reporters on Saturday, Tang said he disputed the findings, but the force will nevertheless stop asking officers to wear an operational call sign until their appeal process is completed.

High Court Judge Anderson Chow ruled on Thursday that the fact riot officers didn't show their ID numbers during anti-government protests violated the Bill of Rights governing torture and cruel treatment.

The judge held that officers must display their identification numbers prominently to allow anyone accusing the police of abuse to identify those responsible.

While police have asked officers to wear the operational call sign instead, the judge said the arrangement failed to meet the standard of effectiveness of investigation as the call sign is not unique to the officer.

He said once an officer is transferred out of a team, the call sign is recycled and allocated to another officer, adding that there were instances that officers wore the same blue tag and some simply didn't display them.

The court also held that the two-tier complaints mechanism, involving the force's Complaints Against Police Office and the Independent Police Complaints Council, fails to meet the standard of independent investigation under the Bill of Rights.

Tang says the force and the Department of Justice decided to appeal against both decisions after studying the court's judgement.

He said since the issue over the complaints mechanism involves the IPCC and the Security Bureau, the force will also discuss its appeal on those matters with the two organisations.

On the operational call sign, Tang said this was unique to the officer, and any examples where this wasn't the case were isolated and would be looked into.

He added that the reason police had to ask officers to wear a call sign instead of their own ID numbers was that more than 3,000 officers and their families were subject to the release of their personal information, a practice known as "doxxing" during last year's social unrest.