Pang Wing Luk v The Queen

Judgment Cited authorities (3) Cited in Precedent Map Related
Judgment Date02 August 1968
Judgement NumberCACC347/1968
Year1968
CourtCourt of Appeal (Hong Kong)
CACC000347/1968 PANG WING LUK v. THE QUEEN

CACC000347/1968

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF HONG KONG

APPELLATE JURISDICTION

CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 347 OF 1968

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BETWEEN
PANG WING LUK Appellant

AND
THE QUEEN Respondent

Coram: Huggins, J.

Date of Judgment: 2 August 1968

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JUDGMENT

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1. The appellant was convicted on two charges, the first of causing a vehicle to wait on a road where no waiting was allowed and the second of obstructing a police officer in the exercise of powers conferred under the Road Traffic Ordinance. On these charges he was fined $50 and $350 respectively.

2. The appeal against the conviction on the first charge has been abandoned and stands dismissed. On the second charge both conviction and sentence are attacked.

3. The facts found by the learned magistrate were that a Police Constable saw the appellant disobeying a "No Waiting" sign and asked for his driving licence. The appellant started the engine of his car and the Police Constable told him not to drive away but to give him his licence. The appellant handed over his licence but, on opening it, the Police Constable discovered that the name and address of the appellant, a person apparently of Chinese race, was written in Romanized form, which he could not read. Thereupon the constable appears to have handed back the licence and to have asked the appellant for his name in Chinese characters. The appellant did not comply with this request and subsequently refused to show the licence a second time.

4. It is submitted that the conduct of the appellant did not constitute an offence under s.31(4) of the Ordinance. The material part of that sub-section reads:

"Any person who obstructs any police officer ...... in the exercise of any powers conferred under this Ordinance or who refuses to answer or answers falsely any enquiry authorized to be made by a police officer under subsection (8) of section 11 shall, without prejudice to any other provisions of this Ordinance, be guilty of an offence ......"

Counsel points out that in his findings the learned magistrate said: "clearly the offence was committed when (the appellant) refused to return the licence ... on being so requested", from which it would appear that the magistrate assumed that the constable was purporting to act under s.31(1), which allows a police officer to require production of a driving licence in certain circumstances. It is contended that as the appellant did produce his driving licence when it was first asked for he had done all that he could lawfully be required to do: a police officer is not entitled to harass a driver by requiring production of his licence time and time again. Secondly it is submitted that even if the officer could lawfully require production a second time in connection with his reasonable suspicion of the commission of only one offence the appellant's failure to produce the licence was not "obstruction" within the meaning of subsection (4) but should have been charged under the provisions of subsection (3), which make it a specific offence for a driver to fail to produce his driving licence immediately when asked for it. As counsel has said, the summons did not particularize the powers which the constable was purporting to exercise and he was never asked directly what was in his mind. Nevertheless his evidence suggests to me that it was not so much the refusal to produce the licence a second time as the appellant's refusal to give his name in Chinese which led to this charge. The constable said: "I told him I knew it was his licence. If he refused to give me his particulars I would summons him for one more offence, i.e. for refusing to give particulars to a Police Constable in uniform". There is no power of this nature given by the Ordinance to a police officer in uniform which is not given to a police officer not in uniform, but part of s.29(1) provides:

"Where the driver of a vehicle is alleged to be guilty of an offence under any provision of this Ordinance or of any regulations made thereunder -

(a) the driver of the vehicle shall on demand give to any police officer his correct name and address ......".

It has not been suggested that the duty imposed on a driver to give his correct name is not associated with a corresponding power "under the Ordinance" to demand his correct name. If the constable had power under the Ordinance to demand the appellant's correct name it seems to me...

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