Hong Kong Ordinances

CROWN PROCEEDINGS ORDINANCE - SECT 24

Discovery

PART V

MISCELLANEOUS AND SUPPLEMENTAL

(1) Subject to and in accordance with rules of court-

   (a)  in any civil proceedings in the Supreme Court or the District Court to
        which the Crown is a party, the Crown may be required by the court to
        make discovery of documents and produce documents for inspection; and

   (b)  in any such proceedings as aforesaid, the Crown may be required by the
        court to answer interrogatories: Provided that this section shall be
        without prejudice to any rule of law which authorizes or requires the
        withholding of any document or the refusal to answer any question on
        the ground that the disclosure of the document or the answering of the
        question would be injurious to the public interest. Any order of the
        court made under the powers conferred by paragraph (b) shall direct by
        what officer of the Crown the interrogatories are to be answered.

(2) Without prejudice to the proviso to subsection (1), any rules made for the
purposes of this section shall be such as to secure that the existence of a
document will not be disclosed if, in the opinion of the Governor, it would be
injurious to the public interest to disclose the existence thereof. [cf. 1947
c.44 s.28 U.K.]