The government is due to propose amendments to the national security law, which was enacted in 2009, due to the changes in the international landscape and the new requirements on regional safety over the past decade, according to Chief Executive Ho Iat Seng.
Ho said that the government has never applied the local national security law since its enactment, because of which, Ho said, Macao still does not have experience in enforcing the law. “We only have this law in place,” Ho said.
Macao enacted its national security law – the Law on the Defence of National Security – in 2009 based on the Article 23 requirement of the Macao Basic Law.
According to the full version of the 2022 Policy Address, the government plans to submit a bill amending the national security law to the legislature next year for debate and vote.
According to Ho, the government will propose clearer and more accurate rules and procedures listed in the national security law’s amendment bill, adding that the rules listed in the current version of the Law on the Defence of National Security are only written “in a general way”. “Due to the changes in the international landscape, we want the national security law to have a more accurate wording,” Ho said.
Ho said that with the changes in the international landscape and the enactments of the country’s new National Security Law (which was enacted in 2015) and the Hong Kong National Security Law (which was enacted last year), Macao has to “move with the times by making adjustments to its national security law”.
“A good person or a person who never violates the law does not need to worry about the national security law,” Ho said, adding that the government merely aims to come up with clearer definitions in its proposed amendments to the national security law.
Ho also pledged that the government would draft the national security law’s amendment bill in a rigorous way, adding that Secretary for Security Wong Sio Chak is preparing a public consultation on the drafting of the amendment bill, The Macau Post Daily reported.
