Oiwan Lam's indecency hearing is now likely to take place in September - postponed from August, which is good because it gives Oiwan more time to prepare. (For details and background on her case please click here, here, here, here, and here. Oiwan's personal statement about the case is here.)
Oiwan has been trying to get more information from the Obscene Articles Tribunal so that she can prepare for her hearing with them. On July 17th she wrote them a letter asking the following questions:
- Where is the venue of the meeting which did the classification? Who had attended the meeting? Apart from the principal adjudicator and two committee members?
- How were the two adjudicators designated? Selected by the Registrar of OAT? Rotated according to the committee members’ list? Or by computer random selection?
- Had there been an actual voting? If there is, what classification is opined by the two adjudicators? What is the opinion of the principal adjudicator? If no voting were made, please describe how the classification was arrived at? For example, was the suggested classification made by any of the three adjudicators and then consented by all? If that was the case, who had suggested the classiication? .
- Among the two adjudicators, Mr. 薜國強 and Mr. 黃樂豪, did they express any opinion towards this particular article? If so, what are their opinions? Are there any minutes, written or sound record of that classification meeting? And their opinions?
- Had the principal adjudicator and the two adjudicators been informed of the fact that the photo is a hyperlink to flickr (an international photo sharing site with its own guideline for indecent material)? And the nature of the website www.inmediahk.net where the artile is published?
- Had TELA (Television and Entertainment Licensing Authority) or Department of Justice given any remark, comment, legal advice, reference materials, letter of complaint or supporting document when they submitted this particular case to OAT? If so, I should like to know the details of the above documents.
In her letter she also gave the following reason for asking these questions:
The above information is necessary for my preparation of witness statement, expert opinions, submissions, etc. as they directly affect the classification of the article – which can lead to a serious criminal charge. Am looking forward for your reply at your earliest convenience.
Writing on her Facebook page today, Oiwan updates us on the response she received from OAT:
OAT forwarded my letter to TELA, and TELA wrote back to them: "Futher clarifications from the applicant may be needed and the Tribunal may wish to ask the Applicant to indicate the relevance of the questions in relation to the full hearing".
OAT then replied to me in one sentence: "Please tell the Tribunal the relevance of the questions in relation to the full hearing".
Apparently the reason Oiwan gave in her initial letter: "The above information is necessary for my preparation of witness statement, expert opinions, submissions, etc. as they directly affect the classification of the article" - is not enough for them.
Oh pleeze, this kind of attitude won't fly with government agencies in US either.
On two occasions my passport application was returned (writing under the line, beige background in photo too dark.) Do you think I should yell "they won't give me a passport"? Or should I be observant of the beauracracy?
If Lam stated her reason to the authority in the context request, at the time of the request, and still get no answer, perhaps you have a case.
What's obvious right now is y'all got an attitude.
Posted by: charles liu | July 30, 2007 at 06:18 AM