Question #1: Case Brief of Wong Lin Kay Please prepare a full case brief of HKSAR v. Wong Lin Kay, including all of the key elements we described in class. Do not include a section on obiter dicta. (No more than 400 words) (20 marks) A. Parties to the case/citation HKSAR v Wong Lin Kay (2012) 15 HKCFAR B. Facts (substantive and procedural) 1) Substantive Wong Lin Key, the respondent, was a trunk driver in the Agricultural, Fisheries and Conversion Department. He was disqualified from driving due to a conviction of drink driving. Yet, he continued his job as a driving without disclosing the conviction to his employer. Subsequently, he was convicted of driving whilst disqualified and misconduct in public office. 2) Procedural The respondent appealed against his convictions of driving whilst disqualified and misconduct in public office. The appeal on the former …show more content…
Legal Issue(s) 1) Whether or not the respondent fell into the category of “public official” for the purposes of the common law offence of misconduct in public office? D. The holding(s) 1)The defendant was not a public official, as he was not taking a sufficiently responsible position, which vests him with relevant powers or discretions for public benefit. 2) The appeal was dismissed and the respondent should have the costs. E. The rule of the case 1) The offence involved in the present case misconduct in public offices. There are four elements of the offence, including a. A public official; b. who in the course of or in relation to his public office; c. wilfully and intentionally; d. culpably misconducts himself F. Reasoning General 1) Not every public employee fell into the category of “public officials” and was susceptible to liability for misconduct in public office. To determine whether or not the person was a “public officer”, the court had to examine the authority power had been entrusted to the defendant in his official position that would affect public benefit.
The duties of a police officer are to ensure that there is maintenance of public peace and order. In order to perform their duties and obligations they require certain powers, authority in order to perform their duties and this extends the power to arrest. This paper focuses on the decision of the court in DPP v Carr, the amendments on Law Enforcement (Powers and Responsibilities) Act (LEPRA) section 99 and a critical evaluation of statements made by Sentas and Cowdery.
During the submission by the amicus curiae it was evident that the police might not have put much interest in arresting the suspect given they did not follow due procedures. However had the suspect been arrested near his premises the case would take another
Discretion does have its advantages. Philip Howard puts forward as an argument that discretion is an essential and inevitable element of public administration. According to Howard discretion is needed to make certain that benevolence is in the manner of governing. He suggest that in an effort to attain conformity with the rules or fairness, more than is normal limited the discretion of public officials in some principle of action adopted by government areas.
In this paper, I argue that courts should not treat civil parties in quasi-criminal cases the same as criminal defendants because character evidence can be misused as propensity character evidence. Part II of this paper discusses the bar against admitting character evidence. Part III deals with the split among courts as to whether this rule can apply in quasi-criminal cases. Part IV of this paper concludes that courts should resolve this split and refrain from treating civil parties in quasi-criminal cases as criminal defendants because the risk of prejudice does not support this use of the Federal Rules of Evidence.
Accused of denying access to officials, Semayne exercised the right of a homeowner to defend his ...
Reasoning: The responsibility of the prosecutor is to disclose information and evidence. If there is a promise being made by an attorney, then the information should be must be attributed to the government. The Supreme court had found that the prosecutor’s lacked to disclose evidence that was relevant to the defense. The prosecutor had also failed to correct the false evidence that had been presented at the
R v Secretary of State for Transport, ex parte Factortame Ltd and others [1999] All ER (D) 1173.
First, consider the Elected Official Safety Act. One can argue against it, chastising and criticizing it by vitriolic attacks on its validity, especially based on how it was stated. However, as this opinion will show, those attacks a...
This is an attempt at defining the term “public” in Public Administration based on my understanding of PA readings, lectures attended and, personal insights.
“Therefore the primary duty of public servants is to act as guardians and guarantors of the regime values for the American public” (Frederickson, 205). Frederickson viewed those in public servitude as the great ambassadors and representation of the American Government system. When one thinks of such a character we perhaps think about our Founding Fathers or Jimmy Stewart’s character in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Earlier, I pointed out that the public had the ability to voice and relay their opinions on their public officials, especially if they are not pleased with them. Each individual holds certain morals to themselves and certain values are treasured to them, because they are ones they learned through their experiences.
He contends that “[public] administration’s contribution to public trust tends to be invisible because most of its contribution is at a routine or below-the-surface-level” (2006, Pg. 633). Is it the role of the public to recognize the contributions of public administrators or is it better that public administrators be those who are behind the scenes, working tirelessly for the common good? Thomas Jefferson said “in a virtuous government, public offices are what they should be: burdens to those appointed to them […] foreseen to bring with them intense labor and great private loss” (as cited in Light, 2011, pg. s10).
Judicial officers are afforded tremendous amounts of discretion in the execution of their duties. With this discretion comes an insurmountable amount of responsibility to exercise it with care, as a judicial officer’s decisions have life impacting results on those who they exercise their discretion upon. It is also very important that judges make ethical decisions and recuse themselves from cases in which their discretion may be compromised by personal bias in favor of any particular party they are presiding over. Knowing when, and having the fortitude to recuse themselves is often the key decision to make to prevent the crossing of any ethical boundaries. Judges, being the highest level with the most authority within the criminal justice system, are especially entrusted with the use of their discretion. Historically, there is little consequence to judges who exercise their discretion poorly or unethically in the carrying out of their duties.
Secretary of State for the Home Department (Respondent) v. K (FC) (Appellant) Fornah (FC) (Appellant) v. Secretary of State for the Home Department (Respondent) [2006] UKHL 46
Although the potential duality within the life of a government official is grounds for the tolerance of most immoral actions, a code of conduct for elected government officials should still be executed. The dual lives only justify there being no obligation for elected officials to live a morally exemplary life in private; it does not justify the allowance of unethical lives with regards to the elected government offices. As long as the code of conduct revolves around the ethics of the professional life and excludes most immoral actions of the private life, the code should be upheld.
Public personnel administration consists of three general systems. The first one I’ll talk about is civil service. The civil service helps to protect employee rights and safeguard efficiency. Historically, personnel administration shifted from emphasizing the value of responsiveness to emphasizing political neutral competence among public employees. Before they would use the spoils system and the patronage system, which selected employees and awarded government contracts based on loyalty or party affiliation. In this present day, we are using more of the civil service system, which is a method of choosing employees based on certain formal qualifications such as competitive exams instead of political patronage. It all start...