HEADNOTE.doc

HCMA 406/2009 HEADNOTE The scheme of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Ordinance, Cap. 297 is that the availability of a spent conviction is based on what the courts consider to be the appropriate sentence. Such a statutory scheme would be undermined if not overthrown if the courts were to impose less than the appropriate sentence so as to make spent convictions available. If the legislature wishes to amend the statute to make spent convictions more widely available, that is another matter, being a matter for the legislature. HCMA 406/2009 IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE MAGISTRACY APPEAL NO. 406 OF 2009 (ON APPEAL FROM ESCC 954 OF 2009) ____________ BETWEEN HKSAR Respondent and WU CHUN FAI Appellant ____________ Before: The Honourable Mrs Justice V. Bokhary in Court Date of Hearing: 4 February 2010 Date of Judgment: 4 February 2010 _______________ J U D G M E N T _______________ The Appellant, a man aged 50 and of previous good character, pleaded guilty before Ms Bina Chainrai in the Magistrates’ Court to possessing an infringing copy of a copyright work for the purpose of or in the course of a trade or business with a view to its being used by a person for the purpose of or in the course of that trade or business without the licence of the copyright owner of that copyright work, contrary to sections 118(2A) and 119(1) of the Copyright Ordinance, Cap. 528. It is stated in the particulars of offence that the infringing copies were of two computer programmes. As to the circumstances of the case, the Magistrate said this in her Reasons for Sentence: “3: Facts admitted by the Appellant disclosed that at 1500?hours on 21/11/2008, officers from the Customs Excise Department conducted an anti-piracy operation at the premises of a company trading as ‘3R Media Production Company’ at Room?2204, Wai Wah Commercial Centre, No. 6 Wilmer Street, Sheung Wan. The Appellant met these officers