Keeping the peace: a crucial power and duty of the police

Police enforcement can at times be controversial, particularly when politicians are involved.

After police officers removed a Democratic Party district councillor, Ted Hui Chi-fung, from last month's meeting of the Central and Western district council's working group on civic education, some claimed they had gone too far. Hui was ejected after a vote by his fellow councillors, who apparently objected to him and his party colleague Ng Siu-hong filming their discussion of how to allocate HK$250,000 to promote the Basic Law.

Hui and Ng "kept filming other members, which provoked them", the working group chairman Sidney Lee Chi-hang said, leaving him no option but to eject them to ensure that the meeting continued peacefully.

Police Commissioner Andy Tsang Wai-hung insisted his officers had acted lawfully in removing Hui, and that they had simply maintained the "peace in society". Tsang, presumably, was referring to the duty of the police, under the Police Force Ordinance, to take lawful measures to "preserve the public peace" - although reporters seeking clarification were confounded when Tsang told them to get their own legal advice.

While the police have a statutory power to apprehend any person they reasonably suspect of being guilty of an offence punishable with imprisonment, they can also, under the common law, use reasonable force to prevent a person committing a breach of the peace. This, apparently, was what Tsang meant.

The essence of a breach of the peace lies in violence or threatened violence. A breach arises whenever harm is done or is likely to be done to a person or in their presence to their property, or a person is in fear of being so harmed through an assault, a riot or other disturbance. Someone may provoke a breach without any violence or threat of violence by them, if the natural consequence of their conduct is violence by a third party.

A breach of the peace can occur in a private or public place. So it was open to the police, if they feared an imminent breach, to remove Hui physically even if - as denied by the chairman - a decision had been taken to hold the meeting behind closed doors. An officer, like an ordinary citizen, may take reasonable steps to stop a person who is breaking or threatening to break the peace, such as detaining them, even without an arrest warrant.