Codification: The Preliminary Offences of Incitement, Conspiracy and Attempt
(HKLRC Report)
This 1994 report examined the three preliminary offences of incitement, conspiracy and attempt. Lawyers refer to these as "preliminary" because they precede the commission of the completed offence. The proposals in the report were intended to bring Hong Kong's law up to date with developments in England and Wales which had been found to work well in practice.
The main recommendations included the removal of the defence of impossibility and the abolition of the offences of corrupting public morals and outraging public decency. The Commission also recommended that the common law rule that a person cannot conspire with his or her spouse, and the exemptions where the other party to a conspiracy is a person under the age of criminal responsibility or is the intended victim of a crime, should be preserved.
The recommendations contained in the report were incorporated into the Crimes (Amendment) Ordinance, enacted in 1996.
| Press Release (PDF) (MS Word) |
| Executive Summary (PDF) (MS Word) |
| Report (PDF) (MS Word) |