Hong Kong is unusual in that the Basic Law protects legal professional privilege (LPP) 'up front' by specifically identifying it as a constitutional right. Other jurisdictions have to be content with common law protection, or in gleaning the right to confidential legal advice as an aspect of another right, such as a right to privacy, the right to a fair trial or the right of access to a lawyer, a right that is sometimes only available in criminal cases.

However, practical and efficient protection of LPP is lacking because there is no legislative infrastructure of universal application that requires courts and law enforcement bodies to specifically address LPP issues - or issues of confidentiality, for that matter - at the investigation stage. The result is that search warrants can be executed on LPP and other confidential materials and the courts are then tasked with sorting out the rights and wrongs of a seizure in a judicial review or tort-based action against the body responsible for executing the warrant. Such actions take time and unnecessarily delay criminal investigations. They also bog down solicitors' firms in avoidable and expensive litigation.

This article is concerned with the legal issues that arise, and practical problems that occur, when, as happens not infrequently, a police officer or an officer from the Independent Commission on Corruption turns up, without prior notice, at the reception of a solicitors' office at 10am on a weekday brandishing a warrant and requesting immediate access to a wide range of a client's papers and the handling partner or responsible solicitor may be out of the office.

The Common Law

The common law is the source of the doctrine of LPP, and the doctrine is an ancient one. It was imported into Hong Kong along with the rest of the common law when Hong Kong became a British possession in the mid-nineteenth century.

It naturally followed from this that LPP, as a common law construct, could, in theory, be abrogated by an ordinance in colonial days, just as it could in the United Kingdom. Lord Taylor said in R v Derby Magistrates Court, ex parte B [1996] 1 AC 487 (HL) at 507:

"Nobody doubts that legal professional privilege could be modified, or even abrogated, by statute, subject always to the objection that legal professional privilege is a fundamental human right protected by the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (1953) (Cmd 8969) ... whatever inroads may have been made by Parliament, legal professional privilege is a field which Parliament has so far left untouched."

The content of the common law right is best defined by the fairly recent statutory formulation occurring in s 2 of the Organized and Serious Crimes Ordinance (Cap 455), itself based on s 10(1) of the UK Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. It defines LPP as meaning:

(a) communications between a professional legal adviser and his client or any person representing his client made in connection with the giving of legal advice to the client;

(b) communications between a professional legal adviser and his client or any person representing his client or between such an adviser or his client or any such representative and any other person made in connection with or in contemplation of legal proceedings and for the purposes of such proceedings; and

(c) items enclosed with or referred to in such communications and made -

(i) in connection with the giving of legal advice; or
(ii) in connection with or in contemplation of legal proceedings and for the purposes of such proceedings, when they are in the possession of a person who is entitled to possession of them, but excludes any such communications or items held with the intention of furthering a criminal purpose...

The Basic Law

The Basic Law, however, changed LPP's status. It elevated a common law doctrine into a constitutional right. Article 35 states:

Hong Kong residents shall have the right to confidential legal advice, access to the courts, choice of lawyers for timely protection of their lawful rights and interests or for representation in the courts, and to judicial remedies.

Hong Kong residents shall have the right to institute legal proceedings in the courts against the acts of the executive authorities and their personnel.

There is now no need in Hong Kong to even consider construing legislation as if it were capable of removing the 'right to confidential legal advice'. No ordinance enacted by the Legislative Council could now do so, and pre-1997 ordinances that arguably might have done so are ineffective. LPP is now firmly entrenched in the justice system with substantive status.

Practical Protection

It is one thing to have an entrenched constitutional right. It is another thing to enjoy practical protection of that right.

If search warrants cannot be issued in respect of LPP materials, and powers of search, whether tied to a warrant or not, cannot be used to take them, what happens when, as is almost bound to happen when a search warrant is executed on solicitors' premises, it is apprehended that LPP materials are at risk?

The solicitors - because it is solicitors' firms that are the usual targets - are in an invidious position. They are not, as a rule, usually given advance notice of the visit of the police or ICAC. They are duty-bound under their rules of professional conduct to assert LPP on behalf of the client, but the solicitor served with the warrant may not have an intimate knowledge of the files, sometimes voluminous, that are the target of what may be a widely drawn warrant. Time is pressing too and may not be on the solicitor's side.

Almost inevitably there is a blanket claim to LPP, which ends up with the law enforcement officers bundling unexamined documents into bags that are then sealed and taken away to await an application for judicial review of the search and/or the seizure and, if necessary, an examination by a judge of the actual documents seized to see whether any of them are covered by LPP. This can take many months, years even, and the criminal investigation may then slow to a crawl. As of the time of writing, one case that started with a seizure of documents under a warrant in April 2006 was awaiting a hearing in the Court of First Instance later this year in order to determine whether some of the documents taken away were in fact subject to LPP.

This is all very inefficient. Procedures could be easily devised that would make the discharge of the solicitor's duty to protect LPP more effective and would allow the police and ICAC to better conduct their investigations into criminal offences.

When it was finally accepted in England and Wales that the prospect of legislative interference with LPP was theoretical rather than real (see R (Morgan Grenfell Ltd) v Special Commissioner of Income Tax [2003] 1 AC 563) attention moved towards the problem of practical protection. A number of legal reforms over the past twenty five years, starting with the Police and Criminal Act 1984 and related court cases, focused on the special legal status of confidential materials, including LPP materials, and what to do with them when they were discovered on a search or only after they were taken away and sorted.

The procedures, which included an informal scheme for appointing independent counsel to adjudicate on LPP claims at a search scene, were supplemented by statute when the English courts finally rejected the existence of a power to 'sort and sift' seized materials, which may turn out to include LPP materials, away from the searched premises to see whether they were within the scope of the authorised search. See R v Chesterfield Justices, ex parte Bramley [2000] 1 All ER 411 and Part 2 of the Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001 and the supporting Codes of Practice which, in the light of Chesterfield Justices, allowed the temporary removal of seized materials in a secure manner in order to ascertain their status and whether they could have been seized.

A very major shortcoming in the laws of Hong Kong is that they contain no general pointers to law enforcement bodies as to how to conduct investigations in such a way so that the risk of encroaching on sensitive materials, including confidential records like medical or personal counselling records, might be avoided.

There are certainly specific provisions in different ordinances that offer some categories of information more protection than others. For instance, journalistic materials, a type of confidential material thought worthy of special protection though not as highly valued as LPP, are protected by Part XII of the Interpretation and General Clauses Ordinance (Cap 1) which requires a law enforcement body to at least try every other practicable option, including applying for a production order, before going before a judge of the Court of First Instance to apply for a warrant to seize a journalist's notebooks.

Similar protective provisions apply in the context of investigations into 'organized crime' and related criminal activities, as defined in the Organized and Serious Crimes Ordinance (Cap 455). Such investigations require law enforcement bodies to at least try securing materials sought in other ways, for example, by means of a production order, before asking a judge of the Court of First Instance or the District Court to sanction the nuclear option of a search warrant. However, if the law enforcement body chooses not to investigate a particular offence or series of relevant offences as 'organized crime', the protection does not apply and a magistrate can issue a warrant free from all these statutory inhibitions: see Philip KH Wong and Kennedy YH Wong (a firm of solicitors) v Commissioner of the Independent Commission Against Corruption [2008] 3 HKLRD 565.

This is all rather arbitrary as far as the innocent third party, whether a lawyer or a banker, who holds materials that constitute relevant confidential information or LPP materials, as the case may be, is concerned. This is because his or her legal and professional duties in confidence to a client do not depend on whether the police choose to characterise an investigation into an offence or series of offences as 'organized crime' or just plain 'crime'.

Improvements

What Hong Kong really needs, as far as search warrants are concerned, is a comprehensive code dealing with confidential and LPP materials in the policing context, something like the one found in the UK Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 as supplemented by the Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001 that, apart from setting out uniform special procedures to be followed when seeking access to confidential and other special records, absolutely prohibits applications for warrants to search for LPP materials. Such a code would require law enforcement bodies to apply to a District Court judge, not a magistrate, to deal with applications for warrants whenever there was any question of LPP materials being discovered on a search.

Such a code could provide for a constitutional off-premises 'sort and sift' power because Article 35 of the Basic Law does not, in terms, prohibit the actual physical seizure of LPP materials. By implication, it only prohibits seizure of LPP materials when the person seizing knows, or has reason to believe, that the materials are subject to LPP.

Most disputed seizures typically involve law enforcement bodies trying to obtain access to the contents of box files and other things which, whilst fitting the description of things that can be searched under a warrant (eg, 'Files and documents relating to the arrangement of a loan facility to X Company in October 2003'), are not necessarily things that can be seized without a proper examination, if the criterion for the seizure power is reasonable suspicion that a thing is, or may be, evidence of an offence. A blanket claim to LPP made under pressure in respect of the entire contents of a file will mean that there will be no scrutiny of individual documents and, if unexamined files and documents are in fact seized and taken away, although securely bagged pending resolution of an LPP issue, the seizing officers, it is submitted, behave unlawfully.

The problem is made worse when materials are in electronic form and are stored in computer hard drives, which contain a lot of other irrelevant materials including LPP materials belonging to other clients of the firm. If the computer is taken away without first attempting to identify and extract the materials that could not possibly be covered by the warrant search and seizure power, there is a risk that the law enforcement body could be liable for damages in a civil suit brought by the owners of LPP who have nothing to do with the investigation. See R (on the application of Faisaltex Ltd) v Crown Court at Preston [2008] EWHC 2832 (Admin) where the Divisional Court discussed the practical problems involved in seizing computers that may include LPP materials as well as other irrelevant material.

New legislation is also needed to provide for a speedy Article 35 'judicial remedy' to determine issues arising when it is alleged that an off-premises statutory 'sort and sift' exercise engages LPP issues. Such a provision would obviate the need to challenge by way of judicial review the warrant and/or the exercise of the power of seizure, unless it was contended that the warrant had been obtained unlawfully or the statutory 'sort and sift' power had been deliberately abused.

In the absence of uniform legislation governing applications for search warrants, the only means of raising protection for LPP is for the courts to insist on minimum standards in applying for warrants. This means requiring that, where there is a real risk of a search involving LPP materials, any warrant issued should show on its face that the magistrate has addressed his or her mind to the issue of LPP.

This means attaching conditions to the warrant that show that LPP has been addressed in the application process. A basic condition to be attached, which is obvious, but bears formulaic repetition, is an endorsement to the effect that the warrant does not authorise the search for, or seizure of, LPP materials. See Philip KH Wong and Kennedy YH Wong (a firm of solicitors) v Commissioner of the Independent Commission Against Corruption [2008] 5 HKC 263 at [63] where Saunders J set out a search and seizure protocol that should be on the face of warrants and should be followed by law enforcement bodies when executing in circumstances where it is likely that LPP will be an issue. This case is subject to an appeal to the Court of Appeal in June by the Commissioner of the ICAC who contests the need for such conditions to be attached to warrants in these kinds of cases.

Unfortunately, some magistrates, in trying to be helpful by emphasising the importance of LPP, include an endorsement suggesting that where claims to LPP are made, the materials can nonetheless be seized and taken away so long as they are bagged and sealed, and that the bags will not be opened until after the expiry of seven days unless an application is made to the court for judicial review, after which they may be unsealed and the contents examined.

The effect of such an endorsement is to impose a ÔdeemedÕ waiver after the expiry of a unilaterally imposed time limit. The judicial power of the courts of Hong Kong under the Basic Law is extensive, but it probably does not extend to including a power in such cases to impose a 'sell-by' date on LPP products.

Philip Dykes SC
Barrister

This article is an edited version of a paper prepared in February 2009 and presented at the Commonwealth Law Conference in April 2009.

對香港法律專業保密權的實質保障
戴啟思資深大律師指出，對可構成秘密法律諮詢的資料進行刑事調查，現行的方法仍有頗多不足之處。

香港的不尋常之處在於，《基本法》特別保障法律專業保密權，將其設定為一項憲法權利。其他司法管轄區僅可滿足於普通法的保障，或者爭取秘密法律諮詢權作為其他權利的一個方面，例如私隱權、公平審判權或獲得律師提供法律服務的權利，這些權利有時候僅在刑事案件中才可獲得。

然而，法律專業保密權卻缺乏現實、有效的保障，因為不存在具有普遍適用性的立法架構，要求法院和執法機構在調查階段具體處理法律專業保密權事宜（或這方面的保密性事宜）。結果是，搜查令可以針對法律專業保密權及其他保密資料而執行，而法院之後便需要在向負責執行搜查令的機構所提起的司法覆核或侵權法律訴訟中，裁斷該項扣押行動是對還是錯。此類行動耗費時間，並無謂地延遲刑事調查，還讓律師行陷入本可避免的昂貴訴訟中。

本文探討的法律事項和實際問題會出現在這樣屢見不鮮的場合中：某個工作日的上午10時，一位警官或廉署人員未經事先通知出現在律師行的接待處，揚出搜查令，要求立即查閱範圍廣泛的當事人文件，而處理該案的合夥人或負責律師卻不在辦公室。

普通法

普通法是法律專業保密權原則的來源，是一條古老的原則。香港在19世紀中葉成為英國的屬地後，該原則與其他普通法一併輸入香港。
從這一點自然可以推斷，作為一項普通法概念，殖民時期的法律專業保密權在理論上可以經條例廢除，就像在英國那樣。Lord Taylor在R v Derby Magistrates Court, ex parte B [1996] 1 AC 487 (HL) （第507頁）中表示：

「沒有人懷疑法例可以修改乃至廢除法律專業保密權，但始終需要考慮到：法律專業保密權是一項基本人權，受《歐洲保障人權與基本自由公約》的保障(1953) (Cmd 8969) … 不論國會曾作出什麼侵犯行為，但法律專業保密權是它從來沒有涉足的範疇。」

對普通法權利內容的最佳界定，見諸頗為近期的，以UK Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984第10(1) 條為藍本的《有組織及嚴重罪行條例》（第455章）第2條中的成文法規定﹕

(a) 專業法律顧問和他的當事人或當事人代表之間，就有關向當事人提供法律意見而作出的通訊；

(b) 專業法律顧問和他的當事人或當事人代表之間，或該等顧問、當事人或當事人代表和任何其他人之間，就有關法律程序或在預期進行法律程序的情況下及為該等法律程序而作出的通訊；及

(c) 該等通訊中所附有或提及的品目，而該等品目又是─
(i) 與提供法律意見有關而作出的；或
(ii) 就有關法律程序或在預期進行法律程序的情況下及為該等法律程序而作出的，且正由有權管有該等品目的人所管有，但不包括為意圖助長犯罪目的而持有的品目或作出的通訊…

《基本法》

然而，《基本法》改變了法律專業保密權的地位。它將一項普通法原則列入憲法性權利之中。《基本法》第35條規定﹕

香港居民有權得到秘密法律諮詢、向法院提起訴訟、選擇律師及時保護自己的合法權益或在法庭上為其代理和獲得司法補救。

香港居民有權對行政部門和行政人員的行為向法院提起訴訟。

目前，香港甚至沒有必要考慮解釋法例，有如其有能力將「秘密法律諮詢權」取消。立法會制定的任何條例目前均不可能這樣做，而或許可以這樣做的1997年前條例現已失效。如今，法律專業保密權已牢固地根植於司法體系中，具有實質地位。

實質保障

擁有確立的憲法權利是一回事，而享受該權利的保障又是另一回事。

假如不能就享受法律專業保密權的資料簽發搜查令，並且不能動用搜查權（無論是否與搜查令相關）取走資料，那麼假如察覺到享有法律專業保密權的資料處於風險當中（這在對律師的辦事處執行搜查令時幾乎必然會發生），會出現什麼情況？

律師處於不利地位，因為律師事務所通常是搜查目標。作為慣例，在警方或廉署到訪前他們通常不會得到事先通知。根據專業操守規則，他們有責任為當事人提出法律專業保密權，但被送達搜查令的律師，或許對有關檔案並不密切瞭解（有時候數量龐大），而文件可能是對象廣泛的搜查令的目標。此外，時間緊迫亦可能對律師不利。

幾乎無可避免地，就法律專業保密權而提出的主張會是全面性的，而這最終會導致執法人員將未經查看的文件捆紮成袋並封口帶走，等候對搜查及／或扣押進行司法覆核的申請，或在必要情況下等候法官對扣押的實際文件進行審查，瞭解是否有任何文件受法律專業保密權的保障。這可能須耗費許多個月甚至數年。這樣，刑事調查可能進展極其緩慢。在本文撰寫之時，一宗剛開始依照2006年4月的搜查令遭扣押文件的案件仍在等候原訟法庭今年較後時間的聆訊，以便確定取走的某些文件是否確實受法律專業保密權保障。

這一切都非常缺乏效率。事實上，程序可以輕易地設計，以提高律師行使職權保障法律專業保密權的成效，使警方和廉署可以更好地開展對刑事罪行的調查。

英格蘭和威爾士最終認可，與法律專業保密權產生立法衝突的可能性僅存在於理論而並非真實（參見R (Morgan Grenfell Ltd) v Special Commissioner of Income Tax [2003] 1 AC 563）。此後，人們的注意力轉向實質保障的問題。過去二十五年來的若干法律改革，從Police and Criminal Act 1984及相關法院案件開始，著重於保密資料的特殊法律地位（包括享有法律專業保密權的資料），以及在搜索中或僅在取走並整理後發現此類資料時，該作何處理。

相關程序包括通過非正式安排，指定獨立律師對搜索情形中的法律專業保密權主張作出判斷。此後又補充了相關法規， 英格蘭法院最終拒絕承認存在離開搜查的處所後「篩選」被扣押的資料（這可能最終包括享受法律專業保密權的資料）的權力，瞭解它們是否屬於合法搜查範圍的權力。參見R v Chesterfield Justices, ex parte Bramley [2000] 1 All ER 411 、Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001第2部分以及相應的《實務守則》，根據Chesterfield Justices判例，該守則允許以安全方式臨時取走扣押資料，以便確定它們的地位，以及是否可以扣押。

香港法律一個非常重大的缺點在於，它們不包含針對執法機關的任何一般性指引，令後者瞭解如何以恰當方式開展調查，使侵犯敏感資料（包括醫療或個人諮詢記錄）的風險可得以避免。

當然，不同條例中某些具體的條文，給予某些類別的資料較其他類別更多的保障。例如，記者資料（此類保密資料被認為值得特別保障，但不具備法律專業保密權那樣高的價值）受《釋義及通則條例》（第1章）第XII部分的保障，該條例要求執法機關至少在嘗試各種其他可行方案（包括要求法庭頒發交出命令）後，才能向原訟法庭的法官申請搜查令扣押記者的筆記本。

在調查「有組織罪行」及相關刑事活動的情形中，亦適用類似的保障性條文，《有組織及嚴重罪行條例》（第455章）對此作出了規定。此類調查要求執法機關至少嘗試通過其他方式取得所尋求的資料（例如通過交出命令），然後才能請求原訟法庭或區域法院的法官核准搜查令的核心選項。然而，假如執法機關選擇不將特定罪行或一系列相關罪行作為「有組織罪行」而開展調查，則該項保障將會不適用，而裁判官可以在不受制於所有該等法定禁止情況下簽發搜查令：參見Philip KH Wong and Kennedy YH Wong (a firm of solicitors) v Commissioner of the Independent Commission Against Corruption [2008] 3 HKLRD 565。

對於持有構成相關保密資料或享有法律專業保密權的資料（依情況而定）的不知情第三者（不論是律師還是銀行業者）而言，上述規定相當無理。原因在於，他／她替當事人保密的法律和專業職責並不依賴於警方是選擇將某項罪行或系列罪行定為「有組織罪行」還是僅僅作為普通「罪行」開展調查。

改進措施

就搜查令而言，香港真正需要的是廣泛的守則，處理警務行動中的保密資料及享有法律專業保密權的資料，例如UK Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984以及作為補充的Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001中包含的準則，該準則訂明試圖獲取保密及其他特殊記錄時必須遵循的統一特殊程序，並絕對禁止申請搜查令，對享受法律專業保密權的資料進行搜查。每當在搜查中發現享有法律專業保密權的資料問題，該準則將會要求執法機關向區域法院法官（而非裁判官）請求處理搜查令申請。

這樣的守則，可賦予合憲的處所外「篩選」權力，因為《基本法》第35條在字面上並沒有禁止對享有法律專業保密權的資料進行實物扣押。它是憑著隱含意思，僅在扣押人知道或有理由相信相關資料享受法律專業保密權的情況下，該條款才禁止扣押享有法律專業保密權的資料。

大多數有爭議的扣押一般都涉及執法機關試圖取得檔案夾及其他物品的內容，這些物品雖然符合搜查令規定可以搜查的物品描述（例如：「與X公司2003年10月的一筆貸款安排有關的檔案及文件」），但不一定是可以未經適當檢查而可以扣押的物品，假如行使扣押權的標準是合理懷疑某件物品是或可能是罪行證據。在壓力之下就文件的全部內容提出籠統法律專業保密權主張，將意味著將不對個別文件進行細察；假如未加檢查的檔案和文件事實上受到扣押並取走，雖然文件被穩妥地捆紮成袋，等待對法律專業保密權問題所作的裁決，但可以認為，扣押人員的行為已經違法。

假如資料採用電子格式，儲存在電腦硬碟中，而硬碟又包含許多其他不相干資料，包括屬於律師行其他當事人的享有法律專業保密權的資料，問題就變得更加複雜。假如將電腦取走，而不事先試圖甄別、抽取不可能被搜查令的搜查與扣押權涵蓋的資料，該執法機關便有可能在法律專業保密權的所有人（這些人與調查無關）提起的民事訴訟中承擔損害賠償責任。參見R (on the application of Faisaltex Ltd) v Crown Court at Preston [2008] EWHC 2832 (Admin)案件。在該案中，上訴庭討論了扣押可能包含享有法律專業保密權的資料以及其他不相干資料的電腦涉及的實務問題。

我們亦需要新的法例 ，以便快速通過第35條中的「司法濟助」，判定當有人指稱處所外的法定「篩選」行動涉及法律專業保密權問題時所出現的問題。該等條文將使人們不必通過司法覆核的途徑質疑搜查令及／或所行使的扣押權，除非有人提出搜查令的取得方式違法，或者法定的「篩選」權力被蓄意濫用。

基於並沒有統一的法例規管搜查令的申請，對法律專業保密權作出保障的唯一途徑，便是由法院堅持申請搜查令的最低標準。意思是，假如存在有關的搜查涉及享有法律專業保密權的資料的真正風險，則所發出的搜查令，應當在表面上顯示裁判官已經注意到有關法律專業保密權的問題。

這意味著應在搜查令上附加條件，說明在申請過程中已經注意到法律專業保密權問題。附加的一項基本條件（那是十分明顯但屬於照例重複的做法）是加上註明，指定該搜查令並不授權搜查或扣押享有法律專業保密權的資料。（參見Philip KH Wong and Kennedy YH Wong (a firm of solicitors) v Commissioner of the Independent Commission Against Corruption [2008] 5 HKC 263 [第63頁]，在該案中，申達誠法官頒下了搜查與扣押的準則，要求搜查令上應當寫明該準則，而假如在執行搜查令時很可能涉及法律專業保密權問題，則執法機關應當遵循該準則。該案件在6月份由廉政專員訴至上訴法庭，他質疑在此類案件中，是否有必要將該等條件附加到搜查令上。）

不幸的是，某些裁判官試圖幫忙強調法律專業保密權的重要性，因而附加註明，規定假如提出法律專業保密權主張，依舊可以扣押並取走資料，只要資料被裝袋並加以密封，而在7天完結之前不會被打開，除非是向法院申請司法覆核。之後，文件袋可以啟封，並對內容進行檢查。

此類註明的作用，是在單方面規定的時限結束後施加一項「當作」寬免。在《基本法》下，香港法院享有廣泛的司法權力，但權力可能擴大不到在此類案件中，包含對法律專業保密權產品設定「保鮮」日期。


戴啟思
資深大律師


本文是一篇於 2009年2月撰寫，並於2009年4月在英聯邦法律會議中發表的論文之經編輯版本。