Editorial | Don’t hamper Hong Kong’s quest for equality with spurious restrictions
- Hong Kong’s Equal Opportunities Commission must be given the leeway to expand its scope rather than be bound by specific areas
Hong Kong prides itself on being a diverse international city with laws designed to ensure equal treatment. The Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) is responsible for overseeing legislation in specific areas.
The city has laws against discrimination on the grounds of sex, disability, family status and race. But the commission’s work has, for years, gone beyond those areas, covering research into other types of discrimination, such as on the grounds of sexual orientation or age.
The study of these pressing issues and the possibility of new legislation would appear to be a natural part of the commission’s activities. It is perfectly placed to investigate such matters.
But the EOC had been advised by the Department of Justice that work of this kind goes beyond the legal remit of the organisation. It cannot stray further than the legislation already in place.
Work on legal amendments to protect the LGBTQ community, ongoing for more than 18 months, has been stopped as a result of the advice, which the commission’s own lawyers agree with.
Commission chairman Ricky Chu Man-kin, speaking at a panel discussion on diversity and inclusion to mark the 120th anniversary of the South China Morning Post, said the body was now looking at existing laws instead, to see if they could be applied.
