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裁判官何俊堯在裁決時表示現時法例有漏洞，並引述時任港島道路安全主任、高級督察梁國熙供稱，2006至2022年共有6宗類似案件，導致人命傷亡；即使現行法例下有危險駕駛等嚴重控罪，但由於本案司機案發時不在車上駕駛，故均不適用，只能控以「沒有固定汽車制動器材離開車輛」罪，最高罰款2000元。梁國熙認為判罰輕微，似乎不足阻嚇，法例有「真空位」及應修訂。何官對此表示認同，稱現行法例未能反映事故嚴重程度，令司機毋須就其不當行為付上相稱代價，亦不足以警惕司機在斜路泊車時拉妥手掣。
原文網址：https://news.mingpao.com/pns/%e6%b8%af%e8%81%9e/article/20260429/s00002/1777397618221
原本這一篇的留言涉及太多私隱, 所以把所有留言刪掉重登博文。如煙往事使人唏噓, 就讓它在混混沌沌間溜走。
黎智英的欺詐案昨天上訴庭頒令上訴得直, 原因有兩點, 簡而言之, 其一, 他沒有披露違反租約的責任, 所以不構成欺詐; 其二, 證據不足以使他個人負上刑責。本案的審訊及上訴均由刑事檢控專員楊美琪(Maggie Yang)親自披甲上陣。楊專員2021年8月正式坐正, 我印象中她以專員身分擔大旗作主控官的只有此宗, 她親自上陣的其他案件都涉及47人案被告在高院申請保釋的。為甚麼她選這一宗來做主控, 只有她自己才知道。這一宗一般會被視作違反租約的民事性質的案件, 以刑事檢控來處理並非標少的智力能理解的。上訴判詞不短, 我只是走馬式速讀, 要分析就留給學者去做。
118. In case we were wrong on sub-issue 1, we proceed to deal with the second sub-issue on attribution.
119. On the available evidence, the obvious route to attribute Apple Daily Printing’s breach of duty of disclosure to the applicants is section 101E of the Criminal Procedure Ordinance (Cap 221), which provides:
“Where a person by whom an offence under any Ordinance has been committed is a company and it is proved that the offence was committed with the consent or connivance of a director or other officer concerned in the management of the company, or any person purporting to act as such director or officer, the director or other officer shall be guilty of the like offence.”
However, the prosecution had not invoked it at trial. When we at the hearing query why the prosecution did not do so, Ms Yang does not offer any explanation. Instead, she expressly states that she will not rely on the section either. In light of her position, any further consideration as to whether and how the section might have augmented the prosecution case is academic.
120. Ms Yang seeks to rely on the established principle that corporate bodies are deemed to act and acquire knowledge through those individuals who can be identified as its directing minds: Smith, Hogan & Ormerod’s Criminal Law, 17th Edition, §§8.1.2, 23.2; R v A Ltd & Others [2017] 1 Cr App R 1, at §§26-27; R v Alstom Network UK Ltd [2019] 2 Cr App R 34, at §30. Under this principle, the company is fixed with criminal liability through the acts or omissions of its directing mind. As the learned editors of Blackstone’s Criminal Practice (2025) summarized at §A6.23:
“Because a company is a separate person from its officers, the officers will not necessarily be guilty of a crime just because the company is. Conversely, since a company may be fixed with criminal liability through the acts or omissions of its ‘directing mind’, the way for criminal liability to be proved may, depending on the relevant rule of attribution, be by identifying the criminal acts of one of its officers; in those circumstances both the individual officer and the company may be guilty. In appropriate circumstances, both the company and its officers may be charged with a criminal offence and/or with aiding and abetting an employee to commit a crime …”
121. This rule is the criminal law’s solution to the lack of a corporate body to perform the actus reus and a corporate mind capable of forming mens rea by treating the minds and bodies of the officers concerned as supplying its mental and physical faculties: Smith, Hogan & Ormerod’s Criminal Law, §8.1.2.5. It only attributes criminal liability to a company through the act of its officer who is the directing mind. It does not have the opposite effect of attributing the company’s criminal liability to its officers. Ms Yang’s reliance on this rule is entirely misplaced. If her submission were accepted, it would turn the rule on its head.
G3. Sub-issue 3: Did the applicants have an independent personal duty?
122. Ms Yang makes no submission that the applicants owed the Corporation an independent personal duty to disclose Apple Daily Printing’s breach of the user restrictions or the non-alienation clauses. That is a recognition on her part that no such duty arose either as a matter of law or on the facts.
123. In her oral submissions, Ms Yang raises two fresh points for the first time on appeal:
(1) Both Apple Daily Printing and the applicants might be held liable under the Charges as participants to a joint enterprise. However, that is not what the Charges alleged. Further, Apple Daily Printing has not been named as a co-defendant, contrary to the rudimentary requirement that the prosecution must expressly name a co-defendant in a joint charge if his identity is known.
(2) The 1st applicant had used Apple Daily Printing as a vehicle to perpetrate the fraud against the Corporation. That was never the prosecution case below and the Judge did not make any finding to that effect either.
These points are not open to the prosecution on appeal.
我不知後續會怎樣發展下去, 因為律政司說會研究判詞再決定會否上訴。以我有限知識以純法律看, 似乎沒有理據, 若不是從法律觀點看, 我就不會懂了。7. In his closing submissions prosecuting counsel said:
“Now, remember suspicion is not enough. If you only suspect that the defendant had committed the crime that is not enough. You must give the benefit of the doubt to the defendant and you must acquit her. As the learned judge also said, the defendant needs not prove her innocence. She needs not prove anything. She needed not to give evidence. She needed not to call any defence witnesses and she only exercised her right not to give evidence and not to call any defence witnesses and no adverse inference can be drawn against her. The burden is all along on me, on the prosecution, but the fact remains the defendant did not give evidence.”
Later in his closing submissions prosecuting counsel said:
“Now, again the defendant’s case: you will remember the defendant exercised her right not to give evidence, not to go to the witness box. That’s her right. That’s fine. As I have said the burden is on me to prove the case. But I did not have the opportunity to cross-examine the defendant. I cannot ask her any questions. I did not because she elected not to give evidence and I am unable to test her credibility to test whether she is an honest person, to test about her reliability, whether what she says would be reliable. I have no such opportunity. But in any event, of course she had chosen to speak up in the video-recorded interview, but it is my position and it is my case that the defendant had not told you the truth and/or the whole truth about her story. ”
撇開"needs""needed"的文法錯誤不講, 問題都出在我加了綠色的幾句, 終審法院認為主控嚴重侵犯了被告不作供的權利, 也違反了《刑事訴訟程序條例》第 54(1)(b) 條的禁止規定。本案的判詞也為日後陪審團案提供陳詞指引, 詳情請自己閱讀判詞。因為本案的判決提供了程序指引, 才使我推斷CJ該段演詞是有所指的。
近日觀看太多國際羽毛球賽事, 加上澳洲網球公開賽, CJ的演詞一直擱下沒評論, 直到看到夏主任的訓示, 標少這舊時人, 在新時代洪流淹沒之前, 垂死吐槽。海上生明月, 天涯共此時。
去年我寫新年願望, 其中有這一段:
