http://chrisleung1954.blogspot.hk/2012/08/blog-post_7.html
(文章允許轉貼，請具作者名字：梁煥松)
Owing to a grave misunderstanding arisen in the course of my studies into the impropriety and oppressiveness of criminal investigation and prosecution systems, I was arrested on 13th July, 1975 on suspicion of soliciting a bribe for myself and other people unknown. I was formally charged on 15th July. 1975 but for the offences of blackmail and attempt to deceive! Fortunately, I have ample of evidence to put before the court of law to substantiate the true nature of my conduct and to straighten the misunderstanding. I was acquitted on 18th October 1975.
Since the day of my acquittal, I have nevertheless lived in the memory of the public as a man who has defeated the hands of justice and who in therefore to be despised and excommunicated. I have since lived under the pressure of misunderstanding and bias. Little had anybody had the full picture of the case and little had anybody had the full knowledge of how this case was handled by the ICAC. If they had known all these facts, they might have a different view as to who had defeated the hands of justice!
If I should let my suffering be forgotten and let the unfairness and oppressiveness of our investigation and prosecution systems continue to prey on other innocent people. I have would be failing my duty as a citizen. I now appeal to all of you to urge the Government of Hong Kong to start a full review on the various policies and system which are obviously improper, unfair and oppressive. Among those systems are the systems of investigation and prosecution which have already ruined me and many other innocent people before and after me!
Before I start performing a post-mortem examination of my case, I wish to refer you to a hypothetical case of a gentleman whose unintentional and accidental movement has been mistaken as being intentional by a lady. If the lady shall make a complaint to the police against the gentleman for indecent assault, the gentleman will be in a most vulnerable predicament, even though he is innocent. According to the systems of investigation and prosecution which are adopted by the police, the ICAC and all the investigation units in Hong Kong, unless the lady’s evidence and statement given to the police are loaded with discrepancies, otherwise the police must prosecute the gentleman for the offence of indecent assault It is needless for the police to investigate into the merits of the gentleman’s explanation to consider the irretrievable damage which the gentleman may suffer from as a result of the prosecution even though be may well be innocent.
Consequent thereupon, the gentleman will be prosecuted in any event. It is not difficult to imagine the mental, physical and monetary suffering he will have to bear all the way up to the moment the court’s decision is made. If he is convicted, it is needless to elaborate what will happen to him.
Even if he is acquitted, his future will be ruined all the same. The reason is that once a person is prosecuted for a criminal offence, people generally tend a think that where there is free, there is smoke. In other words, they will inevitably think that there mud be something evil in this accused otherwise the authority concerned will not have charged him. Therefore, even though he is acquitted, he is nevertheless a person of questionable character, He will be tagged with a sigma forever. At any rate, many people will not allow their wives and daughters to go near him thereafter!
Returning now to my case, you will recall that in October, 1975 when the public heard for the first time my defence of psychological experiment, they were all dumbfounded. “Absolutely incredible” were the words many had used for the moment. I could hardly blame them for reacting so impulsively thereto. The explanation was undoubtedly too unmaterialistic and unteal for the materialistic public to understand and accept.
I could well appreciate a similar reaction from the investigating officers of the ICAC when they heard my explanation. It was dark otherwise I could have seen their side-open mouths at that moment.
If my explanation stopped short at the words ‘psychological test’, the investigating officers were justified to reject is as being ridiculous, incredible and unacceptable. If I put a full stop thereto, I only had myself to blame for their decision to prosecute. Nevertheless, as a matter of fact, I have done much more to deserve full protection of me from avoidable ruination and irretrievable damage! I now put before you an account of the remote and immediate causes leading to the misunderstanding and arrest and the notable events which followed after my arrest. I also appeal to you for your own fair judgment on the systems of investigation and prosecution as reflected in my care.
If my obsession in social and psychological studies was the cause to my present tragic case of aggravated misunderstanding, my tragic story should begin in 1944. In 1944, when most people in Hong Kong were still in great distress and desperate predicament, my father look over an orphanage with about thirty helpless orphans at the request of a great number of church members. In the years which followed until it closed down in 1955, the orphanage had supported and educated more than three hundred orphans. Some of them have become doctors and people of achievements among us today.
On the other hand, his obsessed devotion to the orphanage made him sacrifice all of his hardearned money and his prime years therefore and also made him overlook the interest and welfare of his own family. In my view, he has obviously overdone a charity! Nevertheless, some years later, I was to witness myself making a similar decision to devote myself to social works but in a different matter!
Perhaps, it was due to my family blood or the bitter experience of adversity and suffering in my early years by reason of my father’s sacrifice that I made up my mind in about 1959 to study the human mind in order to unearth the roots of human sufferings and social problems. At that time, I considered that all sufferings other than those resulted from the Acts of God were germinated from the human minds. An outstanding example was the mind of Hitler from which germinated the seeds of suffering to millions of people throughout the world for many years.
This altruistic interest of mine was even noticed by some of my teachers at school. On their advice and with their encouragement, I later took up Social Studies in the University of Hong Kong. When graduated, I joined the Social Welfare Department in which I had worked for about two years.
In my early years of social studies and research, I concentrated on child psychology and juvenile delinquent. Very often, I mixed up with various groups of children and delinquents and studied their behavior and mentality at close range. Being influenced by the saying that we had no problem children but only problem parents, I also studied the attitudes of various parents towards their children in their domestic education and also the parent-child relations. In the course of my research, I found out that both the children and the parents were very often victims of undesirable social pressures and therefore they were not to be held fully responsible for what they did. In the light of the foregoing, the above saying was not entirely correct. By going into the problems further, I found out that much of those undesirable pressures owed their inception to those faulty and untimely laws and government policies and systems!
In order to study the problems closely, I studied law and became a lawyer in 1970. However, I was more a social worker than a lawyer in the years of my legal practice. In those few years of legal practice, I have conducted my social research and studies more vigorously and enthusiastically than ever before. I have studied out society from different angles. I have penetrated into different strata of people. I have observed, studied and analyzed the effect of various provisions of law and government policies and systems the propriety of which I have doubted.
Among the many underlying causes of suffering and crimes which I had uncovered in the course of my studies, there were a few which alarmed me most. The bare facts as I saw them evidenced the many causes of crimes being the unbearable pressures created by those faulty, untimely and oppressive provisions of law, government policies and systems. Many of them have been attacked and criticized by me vigorously in the later years of my legal practice. The more I criticized them, the more I uncovered. The more I uncovered, the deeper my heart was sunk for the thousands of innocent people who had hitherto been victimized thereby. My public spirit began to get more and more elated. I took upon myself the duty of acting as a bridge between the aggrieved people and government.
Despite the fact that I had thrown myself all out to reduce the tension and confrontation between the two parties, my position and motive were very often misunderstood and misjudged. On one hand, some people lamed me for being too much a dove and not trying hard enough in fighting for their rights. On the other hand, some government officials considered I was a trouble-maker and anti-government element. I was in the middle of a mess of misunderstanding, but my devotion to social works and my sense of responsibility would not allow me to retreat.
The lack of misunderstanding on the part of the public could well be understood and tolerated. What disappointed and frustrated me most were the general attitudes and policies of many government officials. I just could not find in them any signs of concerns and understanding for the grievances of the people. I was in great agony to see many of them did not even bother to see if what they had decided or done were oppressive or unfair to the people affected. Their senses of responsibility were shockingly poor. I am not saying that all government officials bear the above weaknesses. As a matter of fact, I have met a great number of officials who deserve my greatest respect.
However, for all the troubles created by the lack of understanding on either side, I had to spend tremendous amount of time to pacify them and to reduce tension. Very often, I had to work until the small hours of the morning. For instance, I worked to complete exhaustion at the time when government intended to impose a drastic increase in the licence fee of vehicles, especially public light buses, which was followed by the intended introduction of the Fixed Penalty (Criminal proceeding) Bill, the enlargement of prohibited areas on public light buses, the escalated police action on public cars, the escalated action on food caterers and then the continuous dispute between the public light bus trade and the Transport Department on the tightening of control over pubic light buses.
There were a number of occasions at which people called for extreme actions which could well result in riots. Then, it was inevitably my unpleasant job to put the commotion down. On one occasion, in order to prevent a move of more than 3,000 loaded public light buses driving to the Governor’s House for a demonstration, I made a compromise with them that they would stay the action for one more time pending the outcome of my petition to His Excellency the Governor which petition was to be handed in by me together with not more than thirty representatives. I did an unpopular thing but I had eliminated the possibility of an upheaval. My reward therefore was the title of ‘Anti-government element’ given to me by some government officials!
My discontent with the indifferent attitudes of certain government officials who had inadequate understanding and concerns for the people escalated to almost a climax just a few months before the present incident occurred. I started to write more articles and contributed them to various newspapers criticizing and attacking certain government policies and appealing publicly to government for understanding for the people. The titles of some of the articles are listed below:
Writing those articles had deprived me of many of my sleeping hours I very often woke up in the middle of the night to find myself so full of inspirations and ideas that I would have no alternatives but to get up and start writing immediately. Sometimes, when I finished the television programme “Needle Point” which I chaired in the Radio Hong Kong (ref. Schedule annexed), I again found myself under strong impulses to spend three or four hours in the small hours of the morning reading and writing.
For months I had worked in a completely obsessed and incredible manner not for my profession but for the steaming off and airing of my dissatisfaction with those government policies and systems which I considered unfair and oppressive. My wife, who had thitherto been very patient with my altruistic but eccentric activities began to worry about my health. I asked her to tolerate with me for 5 more years which was the time I thought I required to complete my own ambitious scheme of social reform. She reminded me that if I continued to work in such manner, I would not be able to live that long.
Her last remarks alarmed me most. It was a possibility! However, I just could not suppress the growing urge inside me which pushed me unceasingly to work, work and work. Nevertheless, in November 1974 I went to insure myself against the highly plausible event of dying before my intended works were complete. I considered my duties towards my family and the community were equal. I therefore put my wife and the Community Chest as my beneficiaries in equal shares. The insurance premium for 5 years was $12,000 per annum which was not refundable. With my mind settled so far as the above worries were concerned, I continued to work in such incredible manner. It was extremely lucky that I had not driven myself completely out of my mind!
The above background and circumstances surrounding me reflected the condition of my mind in May, 1975 when I started to write on the underlying cause of crimes and also in July, 1975 when I went blindly ahead to conduct the psychological test on the complainant. I was also hoping at that time that if I could make government change and improve those unfair and oppressive policies and systems which had victimized those groups of people I had acted for I might be relieved from the pressure which sandwiched me between those people and government. I also intended to incorporate and consolidate all my writings and materials of my previous studies and research in one book.
In about May, 1975, in a casual conversation with a reporter friend of mine, I revealed some of my above findings. He was very interested in the subjects. He asked me to write an article on the above issues and he would try to publish it in the Sing Tao Jih Pao. I considered the said newspapers were weighty enough to carry such an article and I therefore agreed to write for him. As a matter of fact, it would be entirely in the interest and to the benefit of the public to have the article published.
About two weeks after the meeting, I started to work on the article, I gave a number of obvious examples to show how some of the government systems had forced people to commit crimes such as corruption. For instance, the procedural delay in the granting of restaurant licence was so slow and prolonged that most restaurant operators were forced either to start operating their restaurants without the requisite licences, violating one part of our laws, or to resort to bribery in order to obtain the requisite licences earlier, violating another part of our laws. If they did not choose one of these two illegal courses, they would end up in bankruptcy or winding up, taking into account the fact that they had to pay every month a very substantial amount of rental and interest on their capital already spent on decoration and furniture. The longer the delay, the greater was the anxiety and mental pressure they would suffer.
It was the undue delay in the system which caused the restaurant operators to commit the crime of bribery or operating a restaurant without a licence. The restaurant operators were but victims to a government system. They acted in such manner in order to protect their properly from total loss or alternatively, they acted in such manner under duress. Such cases were analogous to the cases of people using violence to expel burglars from damaging their property. However, how many restaurant operators had in the past been penalised for conducts which in the circumstances warranted special consideration?
I had also given some other examples and had also mentioned some other issues some of which touched on the merits of works carried out by the ICAC. However, my article would include more examples of how unduly prolonged and slow bureaucratic procedure in granting licences or approvals had pressurized innocent people into choosing bribery as means to eliminate the growing anxiety and mental pressure when they were alarmed by the awareness of their hardearned capital shrinking rapidly in the lapse of time.
