Public Entertainment and the Interpretive Dilemma in T v Commissioner of Police

Abstract

In this Comment, I shall explore the interpretive disagreement between the majority and the minority judges in the Court of Final Appeal decision of T v Commissioner of Police. In essence, the majority judges are more committed textualists, while the dissenting judges are “purposivists” who would adjust the text of the Places of Public Entertainment Ordinance (Cap 172) (PPEO), even in the absence of an ambiguity, to capture what the legislature would have intended had it expressly confronted the apparent mismatch between the statutory text and its purpose. Furthermore, I would also argue that the legislative history of the PPEO is actually inconclusive on the issue of whether the said law was intended to apply to a public street to which the general public has an unrestricted right of access under general law. Finally, I conclude by arguing that if Lord Neuberger, who was in the majority, is right that the PPEO drafters did not intend the said law to apply to public roads, but only because they considered that public entertainment on public roads would never be permissible under any circumstance, the dissent’s attempt to subject such public entertainments to the regulatory scope of the PPEO may actually be more consistent with the legislative position that the lawmakers would have preferred, as opposed to the majority’s stance of exempting all such entertainments now from any licensing regime.