(2) The Attorney General and any public officer authorized in that regard by the Chief Secretary may, by application in the prescribed form, submit any article to the Registrar for classification by a Tribunal.
Interim classification. 14. (1) Subject to section 17(2), where an article is submitted under section 13 a Tribunal shall—
- (a) consider it in private and without the attendance of the applicant or any other person and, within 5 days of that submission, make an interim classification in respect of that article; or
- (b) subject to subsection (2), if at the expiry of the period mentioned in paragraph (a) it has not made an interim assessment, consider that application as if it were a requirement for a full hearing under section 15.
(2) The presiding magistrate may, at any time during the period mentioned in subsection (1)(a), extend that period by any period not exceeding 5 days and shall give notice of that extension to the applicant.
(3) Subject to section 7(3), a Tribunal shall not be required to give any reasons for any interim classification but may give guidance to the applicant in relation to the article submitted.
Requirement for full hearing. 15. (1) Where a Tribunal makes an interim classification in respect of an article any person who submitted, or would have been entitled to submit, the article under section 13 may—
- (a) within 5 days of that interim classification taking effect; and
- (b) by notice in writing in the prescribed form to the Registrar,
require a Tribunal to review that interim classification at a full hearing.
(2) At a full hearing—
- (a) any person who submitted the article the subject of that full hearing and any person who would have been entitled to submit it under section 13(1), the Attorney General, and their representatives, may appear and be heard; and
- (b) any magistrate and any adjudicator shall be competent to sit as a member of the Tribunal at that full hearing notwithstanding that he was a member of the Tribunal which made the interim classification.
(3) The Registrar shall, at least 5 days prior to a full hearing, give notice of that full hearing once each in an English language newspaper and a Chinese language newspaper published daily and circulating generally in Hong Kong but nothing in this subsection shall require the Registrar to give notice of any adjourned hearing of that full hearing.
(4) If in accordance with subsection (3) notice 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.
(5) If under subsection (1) no person requires a review of an interim classification at a full hearing, that interim classification shall be deemed to be the classification of the Tribunal which made it.
Full hearing to be in public. 16. (1) Subject to subsections (2) and (3), a full hearing shall be conducted in public.
