(2) Where a Tribunal is of the opinion that the interests of public morality require that all or any persons should be excluded from a full hearing the presiding magistrate may direct that those persons be excluded accordingly, but the power conferred by this subsection shall not be exercised for the purpose of excluding any person who submitted the article, or any person who would have been entitled to submit it, under section 13 or his representative, or any bona fide reporter for any newspaper, magazine or radio or television station.
(3) A Tribunal may, whether or not it gives a direction under subsection (2), make an order forbidding the broadcasting, whether by radio or television, or other publication of any report or account of the whole or any part of any evidence adduced before it.
Reconsideration of article. 17. (1) Subject to subsection (2), a Tribunal may of its own motion, or at the request of any person who submitted an article or of any person who would have been entitled to submit it under section 13, reconsider the classification of the article and may alter or confirm that classification.
(2) A Tribunal may refuse a request to reconsider the classification of any article submitted under section 13 if that article was classified within a period of 3 years prior to that submission.
(3) This Part shall apply to any motion or request to reconsider a classification as if such motion or request were a requirement for a full hearing under section 15.
Publisher etc. to give notice of classification. 18. (1) The printer, manufacturer, publisher, distributor and importer of any article which is classified as a Class I or Class II article shall give notice in the prescribed manner of that classification and of any conditions imposed under section 8(2)(c) to any person to whom after that classification has taken effect he publishes more than 2 copies.
(2) Any person who contravenes subsection (1) commits an offence and is liable to a fine of $200,000 and to imprisonment for 12 months.
Registrar to give notice. 19. (1) The Registrar shall give notice in accordance with subsection (2)—
- (a) of any interim classification;
- (b) of any classification—
- (i) made at a full hearing;
- (ii) deemed to be the classification of a Tribunal under section 15(5); or
- (iii) made following a reconsideration under section 17; and
- (c) of any conditions imposed under section 8(2)(c).
(2) Notice under subsection (1) shall be given once each in an English language newspaper and a Chinese language newspaper published daily and circulating generally in Hong Kong.
(3) If notice in accordance with subsection (2) is published in the newspapers referred to in that subsection on different days, notice shall be deemed to have been given on the last of those days.
(4) The Registrar shall keep and maintain, in such form as he thinks fit, a register of notices given under this section.
