Introduction: The Basic Law,Governance and Electoral Politics in China's Hong Kong and Macao since 1997

1 July 2007 marks the tenth anniversary of Hong Kong's retrocession to Chinese sovereignty to become a Special Administrative Region (SAR) of the PRC. The HKSAR has functioned under the ‘One Country, Two Systems’ framework as enshrined in the Basic Law, its mini-constitution. Upon the resumption of Chinese jurisdiction over Macao on 20 December 1999, a similar ‘One Country, Two Systems’ formula also came into effect for the new MSAR under its Basic Law. The ‘One Country, Two Systems’ formula that guarantees a high degree of autonomy in both Hong Kong and Macao is also a cornerstone of the PRC's strategy toward peaceful reunification with Taiwan. To provide a more balanced and informed understanding of these two Chinese SARs in actualizing the ‘One Country, Two Systems’ model, this special section of four articles adopts a bi-focal approach. On the one hand, it presents in a joint article the views of two leading mainland Chinese legal scholars (Professors Geping Rao and Zhenmin Wang, both National People's Congress Hong Kong Basic Law Committee members) on some vital dimensions of the Basic Law. On the other hand, it offers three articles with a more locally anchored perspective—a comparative analysis (by Professor Sonny Lo) of the contrasting HKSAR and MSAR experiences, and two case studies (by Professors Bruce Kwong and Eilo Yu) that highlight key features of patron–client linkages and informal politics dynamics in HKSAR and MSAR elections and politics.     

Experiences of probation supervision in Hong Kong: Listening to the young adult probationers

The aim of this article is to report some of the qualitative findings generated from a recent research on probation in Hong Kong. It explores subjective views and experiences of probation supervision from the young adult offender's point of view. Recently there was an increasing emphasis on probation research and improvement, thereby identifying what works or otherwise in rehabilitating offenders and reducing their re-offending. Nonetheless, the role of offenders was largely neglected as service recipients or ‘customers’ in commenting on the usefulness of a penal measure. Offenders are excluded from being asked for their opinions as citizens. Conversely, this study allowed probationers to talk about their experiences of probation supervision in Hong Kong in semi-structured interviews. Their first-hand accounts indicated that probationers had much to contribute to the evaluation process and their voices should be heard by practitioners and policymakers in order to improve probation practice.     

Australian Federal Court cooks up a storm over design rights

An equitable owner of copyright in design drawings is entitlednot only to an assignment of the legal interest in the copyrightbut also to relief to prevent a manufacturer representing thatit was authorized to make goods in accordance with those drawings.     

Police participation in structured plea negotiations

This article examines the participation of police officers in structured felony plea negotiations. The data were collected during the testing of pretrial settlement conferences conducted in Dade County, Florida. The police officers were relatively active in the plea discussions, and their presence affected both the structure of the discussion and the relative influence of the various parties. The data also indicate that police participation and influence were affected by the presence of either the victim or the defendant.While the presence of the police did not affect the processing (settlement/trial rate) or the disposition (sentence severity, use of incarceration or restitution), the officers who attended the conference were more satisfied with both the court process and the disposition. This finding is significant in the light of the demoralizing effects of traditional plea negotiations on police attitudes and the spill over of these negative attitudes into the criminal justice system.     

To Behave Like a Liar: Nonverbal Cues to Deception in an Asian Sample

The detection of deception is an essential yet challenging component of investigative interviewing. Behavioural cues to deception in particular, have long been used in investigative interviewing contexts to determine decisions of suspect veracity and deceit. Nevertheless, deception research amongst non-American or European populations has yet to fully explore the effectiveness of such non-verbal observations. This study may be the first to examine truth-lie behaviours involving South-East Asian participants. In this study conducted in Singapore, 68 participants completed either a mock criminal task or a non-criminal task, before encountering an investigative interviewing scenario in which they had to lie or tell the truth to the interviewer. The results showed that liars displayed significantly more head movements and less hand/finger movements, as well as reported more feelings of guilt, than truth-tellers. Implications for investigator training and criminal investigative procedures are discussed.     

Sample pre-treatment for CO-oximetric determination of carboxyhaemoglobin in putrefied blood and cavity fluid

Blood or blood-containing cavity fluid samples recovered from decomposed bodies in suspected carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning cases often have low total haemoglobin (tHb) levels or contain significant amounts of oily droplets, methaemoglobin (MetHb) and sulphaemoglobin (SHb), all conditions which render the validity of the measurements of carboxyhaemoglobin (HbCO) by commercially available CO-oximeters doubtful. Two sample pre-treatment methods, namely, centrifugal evaporation and addition of a commercially available standard haemoglobin solution containing a known level of HbCO, were developed to render such putrefied samples amenable to analysis by CO-oximeters. The methods developed were validated with samples of various degrees of putrefaction and various HbCO levels. The relative uncertainty of the determined HbCO levels as compared to their corresponding reference levels for the centrifugal evaporation method was approximately 5% and that for the standard addition method was <20%.     

Exploration of the Community Attitude toward Sex Offender Scale in a Chinese Cultural Context

Chinese culture holds very different beliefs regarding sex offenses, violence against women and punishment against offenders. Little is known however about Chinese attitudes toward sex offenders and sex offending policies. The aim of this study was to validate the Community Attitude toward Sex Offender Scale in the Chinese cultural context. Results from a territory-wide telephone survey in Hong Kong revealed a three factor structure that measures perceptions of sex offenders’ social isolation, deviancy and punitive attitudes toward sex offenders. The scale has been renamed as the simplified Community Attitude toward Sex Offender Scale-Chinese (CATSO-C). Each subscale and the total scale showed acceptable internal reliability. This instrument has implications for future cross-cultural studies as well as professionals that work with sex offenders.     

Environmental management by law in China: The Guangzhou experience∗

Taking enviornmental management in Guangzhou as an example, this article explores the theory and practice of Communist China's idea of “environmental management by law.” Based on the Guangzhou experience, it argues that environmental management by law in China is mainly an administrative system of environmental management which takes law strictly as a tool for efficient and effective environmental protection. This system is operated on the principle of ‘rule by law’, and is the antithesis of the Maoist practice of “rule by person.” Contrary to its Western counterpart, China's environmental management system is built on a state‐centered conception of administrative law instead of a ‘right‐centered’ one which is the core of the ‘rule of law’ tradition.