The Protection of the Harbour Ordinance, Cap. 531 () is an ordinance in

Hong Kong Law The law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region has its foundation in the English common law system, inherited from being a former British colony and dependent territory. There are several sources of law, the primary ones being statute ...

that aims to limit land reclamation in the surviving waters of

Victoria Harbour Victoria Harbour is a natural landform harbour in Hong Kong separating Hong Kong Island in the south from the Kowloon Peninsula to the north. The harbour's deep, sheltered waters and strategic location on South China Sea were instrumental in ...

Content

In section 3, the ordinance states that: *"The harbour is to be protected and preserved as a special public asset and a natural heritage of the Hong Kong people and, for that purpose, there shall be a presumption against reclamation in the harbour." *"All public officers and public bodies shall have regard to the principle stated in subsection (1) for guidance in the exercise of any powers vested in them."

History

The ordinance was proposed by the

Society for Protection of the Harbour Society for Protection of the Harbour (SPH) () is a Hong-Kong-based organisation founded in November 1995. It is a charitable, non-political and non-profit making green group. The objectives of the organisation are to protect the Victoria Harbo ...

in 1996 and presented to the Legislative Council by

Christine Loh Christine Loh Kung-wai, SBS, OBE, JP, Chevalier de l’Ordre National du Mérite (born 1 February 1956), is a former Hong Kong Legislative Councillor, founder and CEO of Civic Exchange, founder of the Citizens Party, and founder of Hong ...

. The bill was passed on 27 June 1997 and applied to the area of the harbour around Central, Hong Kong. On 3 November 1999 the Secretary for Planning, Environment and Lands moved for an amendment to the ordinance, which extended it to the entire area of Victoria Harbour as defined by Schedule 3 of the Interpretation and General Clauses Ordinance (Cap. 1).

Reclamation controversy and judicial review

The Government proposed the

Central and Wan Chai Reclamation Central and Wan Chai Reclamation is a project launched by the government of Hong Kong since the 1990s to reclaim land for different purposes. This includes transportation improvements such as the Hong Kong MTR station, Airport Express Railway ...

project in the 1980s, long before the inception of the ordinance. When the ordinance was passed, the first phases for Central and

Wan Chai Wan Chai is situated at the western part of the Wan Chai District on the northern shore of Hong Kong Island, in Hong Kong. Its other boundaries are Canal Road to the east, Arsenal Street to the west and Bowen Road to the south. The area n ...

were already near completion. The ordinance does not affect those projects, however, since Section 4 permits grandfathering of projects authorized prior to the ordinances commencement. However, when the Government later planned to start the remaining phases of the reclamation, conservationists saw the ordinance as a means to stop the projects. The

applied for a stay of order and judicial review on September 25, 2003, prohibiting the government from continuing the third phase of the Central reclamation project. The SPH requested judicial reviews on 27 February 2003 and 25 September 2003, respectively. On 6 October 2003, the High Court rejected the Society's bid to provisionally halt work. Thus, the Government proceeded with its work to fill of the harbour. On 1 September 2004, the Court of Final Appeal rejected the Town Planning Board's proposal on the draft Wan Chai North Outline Zoning Plan (OZP); further, the Wan Chai Development Phase 2 had to be reviewed.

The three tests

On 8 July 2003, Madam Justice Chu of the High Court laid down three tests for the presumptions outlined in Section 3.1 of the ordinance, which were: *Compelling, overriding and present need *No viable alternative *Minimum impairment The tests are carried out on a per-case basis, on the project-in-question's purpose and extent. Thus, the Government and those concerned often cite the three tests to justify (or deny) reclamation projects that are being planned.

References

External links

* {{Victoria Harbour Victoria Harbour Hong Kong legislation