The Legislative Assembly (AL) yesterday passed a government-initiated bill establishing a law regulating the Macau Special Administrative Region’s (MSAR) Committee for Safeguarding National Security, the duties, organisational structure, and operation of which are currently governed by an administrative regulation.
The new law, which will take effect on the day after its promulgation in the Official Gazette (BO), formally defines the committee as an entity tasked with the MSAR’s affairs concerning the safeguarding of national security and assuming the MSAR’s primary responsibility for safeguarding national security, with its operation subject to the oversight and accountability of the Central People’s Government.
Government-drafted bills must be passed by the legislature to become law, while government-drafted administrative regulations, aka by-laws, do not require the legislature’s approval.
The new law, when it takes legal effect, will replace the current administrative regulation governing the Committee for Safeguarding National Security.
The new law, with its final draft passed by the MSAR’s legislature yesterday after a review process, formally regulates the duties, organisational structure, and operation of the Committee for Safeguarding National Security in the form of a law, which highlights the seriousness and authority of the committee tasked with carrying out various duties and functions concerning the MSAR’s safeguarding of national security.
The bill’s outline was passed during a plenary session of the legislature last month, after which the bill was reviewed article-by-article by its 3rd Standing Committee, before it was resubmitted to yesterday’s plenary session, which Secretary for Security Chan Tsz King attended, when it was voted on article-by-article in its second, final reading.
The legislature passed every article of the bill unanimously, when the hemicycle’s speaker, as is customary, did not vote while the other 32 of the 33-member legislature voted in favour of every article of the bill, which has 23 articles.
The MSAR government set up its Committee for Safeguarding National Security in 2018 through an administrative regulation, which is tasked with various duties and functions such as coordinating the local government’s various tasks concerning the MSAR’s safeguarding of the nation’s sovereignty, security and development interests; studying and evaluating the situation in Macau concerning national security and the city’s social stability; formulating local policies on the safeguarding of national security; and promoting work on improving the local legal system on safeguarding national security.
Compared to the current administrative regulation, the new law upgrades the committee’s statutory duties and functions. According to the new law, the committee will be tasked with various duties and functions such as studying the implementation of the Central People’s Government’s decisions and deployments concerning the MSAR’s safeguarding of national security; studying and evaluating the situation in Macau concerning the safeguarding of national security; formulating local policies on the safeguarding of national security; promoting work on improving the local legal system on safeguarding national security and its enforcement mechanism; coordinating the local government’s key tasks and major operations concerning the safeguarding of national security; and carrying out other tasks assigned by the Central People’s Government concerning national security.
According to the new law, the committee will have the statutory power to determine whether political matters and other matters involving the public administration in the MSAR are in the interest of national security, and to make legally binding decisions on the respective matters.
Moreover, the new law formally lists the committee’s current duties of assessing whether chief executive election candidates uphold the MSAR Basic Law and bear allegiance to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the MSAR, as well as assessing whether legislative election candidates uphold the MSAR Basic Law and bear allegiance to the MSAR. The committee has been tasked with these duties since the laws on the two elections were amended in 2024. The individuals concerned cannot file an administrative nor judicial appeal against the committee’s decisions, which are legally binding.
These duties are currently not formally listed in the current administrative regulation governing the committee’s operation.
In addition to the government’s assessments of the qualifications of chief executive election candidates and legislative election candidates, the Committee for Safeguarding National Security, according to the new law, will also have the statutory powers to issue legally binding decisions to other respective public entities tasked with carrying out other aspects of government tasks involving the MSAR’s safeguarding of national security. Similarly, according to the new law, the committee’s decisions made for these cases are not subject to administrative nor judicial appeals.
According to the new law, the committee is chaired by the MSAR’s chief executive, and its composition includes officials such as the local government’s five policy secretaries, the commissioner-general of the Unitary Police Service (SPU), the director-general of the Macau Customs Service, the director of the Judiciary Police (PJ), the commissioner of the Public Security Police (PSP), the director of the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau (DICJ), the director of the Legal Affairs Bureau (DSAJ), the president of the Cultural Affairs Bureau (IC), and the director of the Education and Youth Development Bureau (DSEDJ).
The committee currently has an office tasked with providing administrative support to the committee.
Currently, it is the Judiciary Police which provide administrative, financial and technical support to the operation of the committee and the office under the committee.
According to the new law, the composition of the committee includes a standing secretariat to be tasked with the committee’s daily operations and functioning. The standing secretariat, headed by the secretary for security, will replace the current office operated under the committee. The operation of the standing secretariat will be equipped with financial resources and government staff, in which case the committee’s operation will no longer need to be supported by the Judiciary Police.
Since its establishment in 2018, the committee’s administrative regulation was amended in 2021 adding the posts of a national security affairs adviser and three national security technical advisers appointed by the central government to the committee.
The new law also upgrades the statutory duties and functions to be carried out by the committee’s national security affairs adviser and national security technical advisers.
In addition to the regulation of the Committee for Safeguarding National Security, the new law also amends the Judicial Organisation Framework Law.
According to the current version of the Judicial Organisation Framework Law, only judges holding Chinese nationality can conduct trials for cases of the crimes listed in Macau’s law on safeguarding national security, and only prosecutors holding Chinese nationality can also handle such cases.
According to the new version of the Judicial Organisation Framework Law amended by the newly enacted law on the MSAR’s Committee for Safeguarding National Security, the rule (Chinese nationality) will also be extended to all types of litigation processes such as civil litigation, if the respective cases concern national security.
Moreover, according to the amended Judicial Organisation Framework Law, trials for any types of cases shall be conducted behind closed doors if the respective judges have determined that open trials of such cases will adversely affect national security and the judges’ decisions have been endorsed by the Committee for Safeguarding National Security.
In addition, according to the amended Judicial Organisation Framework Law, if the court determines that a case entails the necessity for the protection of national security interests, the respective lawyer must obtain special permission from the respective judge first before he or she can represent the defendant.
Meanwhile, the MSAR government, through the Macau Government Information Bureau (GCS), issued a statement yesterday following the legislature’s passage of the bill, expressing sincere gratitude to the Legislative Assembly, all sectors of Macau’s civil society and Macau residents for their strong sense of responsibility and unwavering patriotic sentiment demonstrated during the bill’s legislative process.
The statement noted that the newly enacted law on the MSAR’s Committee for Safeguarding National Security will strengthen the local government’s top-level structure concerning the city’s institutional system for safeguarding national security.
Secretary for Security Chan Tsz King addresses yesterday’s plenary session in the Legislative Assembly’s (AL) hemicycle. – Photo: GCS
