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Transformation of Macau policing: from a Portuguese colony to China’s SAR

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Abstract

This study examines policing in Macau and identifies major forces that have shaped its transformation over past decades. Prior to 1999, Macau was a Portuguese colony. Its criminal justice system inherited key features of the Continental system, including two independent law enforcement agencies: the Judiciary Police and the Public Security Police. In the colonial era, expatriate commanders drawn from the military or legal professions headed both departments, while the rank-and-file was composed mainly of local Chinese. This policing mechanism, together with the ‘laissez-faire’ policing philosophy adopted by colonial leaders, created segregation between policing agencies and the community. Citizens preferred minimal interaction with police, since they were skeptical about their professionalism, capability, and reliability. Macau became part of the Peoples’ Republic of China in 1999. The de-monopolization of the gaming industries in 2002 brought huge GDP growth, but generated internal social conflict. Growing public demand for accountable governance motivated a series of governmental reforms, some of which have extended to policing. These reforms have improved the transparency of policing, but it remains to be seen if they will ultimately succeed in generating public trust in the police forces.

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Notes

  1. After the Portuguese revolution in 1974, the new government was inclined to abandon the sovereignty over its overseas colonies. The “Macau Organic Law” approved by the Council of Revolution in Lisbon came into effect in February 1976. It stipulated that the territory of Macau would have a high degree of legislative, administrative, economic, and financial autonomy. The Portuguese Constitution of 25 April 1976 stated that Macau was a “territory under Portuguese administration” [21: 28–29].

  2. The only official language in Macau was Portuguese until after the 1985 Sino-Portuguese Joint Declaration, which recognized written Chinese as a second official language.

  3. Interestingly, both interviewees A and H used the same words in unequivocally stating that the police did not actually safeguard the public under Portuguese rule. See Appendix Table 1 for table listing the policing backgrounds of interviewees and dates of the interviews.

  4. Dissident groups tend not to overtly challenge SAR leadership. They avoided taking “too radical action” to confront the SAR government after its establishment, although they disagreed with the first Chief Executive Edmund Ho’s administrative philosophy [9]. Dissident groups claimed that problems in Ho’s governing strategy would be revealed over time as crises developed because the institutional setup would be unable to keep pace with economic development (interviewee E).

  5. The massive clash ended after the police released tear smoke to disperse the demonstrators.

  6. In a press release issued by the Macau Special Administrative Region Government Information Bureau, the government declared its intolerance toward “any act [intended] to wreck the rule of law and Macau’s stable development” and its determination to “trace responsibility for any attempts to do so” [6].

  7. Hung and Choi [9] explain the consistently low rate of civic participation in Macau but surprisingly high number of membership in associations as the result of a “participation explosion.” They argue that real civil society has failed to develop in Macau and the volume of associations is a result of “social group politics, interest group politics, or informal politics developed by a specially designed state corporate mechanism [based on the] colonial Portuguese government since the 1970s” [9:5].

  8. For example, two key social groups in Macao, the Macau Federation of Trade Union (Federacao das Associacoes dos Operarios de Macau, AGOM) and Macau Union of Kaifong Associations (União Geral das Associações dos Moradores de Macau, UGAMM), usually tender their support to the MSAR government in policy debates.

  9. Hampered by Portuguese illiteracy, Blackburn got help from a Portuguese friend to translate source texts and describe the Macau policing system.

  10. Macau’s colonial governor was appointed by the president of the Republic of Portugal. He was assisted by a number of departmental secretaries, such as the Secretary for Justice, the Secretary for Economic Affairs, Transport and Public Works and the Secretary for Education, Health and Welfare. The governor appointed his secretaries, but the appointments had to be approved by the authorities in Lisbon, who could override the governor.

  11. As of December 2012, Macau Public Security units were organized as follows: The Secretary of Security oversees both Public Security Forces (Forcas de Segurança de Macau), the Judiciary Police (Polícia Judiciaria de Macau), Macau Customs (evolved from the Marine Police which was formerly under the command of the PSP) and Macau Prisons. Under the Public Security Forces, there are the Public Security Police, Public Security Forces Affairs Bureau, Public Security Tertiary Institute (Escola Superior das Forcas de Segurança de Macau), and Fire Service Bureau. The PSP has several departments, including Immigration and the Police Tactical Unit, Macau Police Department, Islands Police Department, Police Training School, and Transport Department [17].

  12. Macanese is the term for Eurasians born in Macau, who usually speak both Portuguese and Chinese.

  13. The Military Personnel Standing Order No. 66/94/M of Macau is similar to the Police General Order (PGO) of the Hong Kong police. It states the organization, command structure, duties, and jurisdictions of different PSP police units, police operational procedures, and even the salary bands and points of police officers.

  14. The JP was founded partly in response to criticism of the existing system of criminal investigation in Portugal, as at that time each investigation was directed by the same judge who would later hear the trial.

  15. According to the Judiciary Police [14] website, the JP was formally established on 19 August 1960, but was first named the “Inspectorate of Macau Judiciary Police.” It was established following enactment of Decree-Law No. 43125 by the Macau-Portuguese Government, which consolidated overseas (including Macau) investigative procedures and handling of preliminary hearings. The JP was intended to support protection of the society against criminal activities in line with the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic and the Portuguese Code of Criminal Procedures.

  16. The JP had only 400 personnel in 1999, which increased to 969 by 2011. There were 3,000 PSP personnel in 1999 and 4,489 in 2011 [20: 119].

  17. The first non-military police commander was not appointed in Macau until 1996.

  18. All criminal investigations were carried out by the PSP CIDs before the JP was formed in 1960. Afterwards, the PSP and JP had some overlapping jurisdiction since they could both conduct criminal investigations. Theoretically, cases involving less than MOP $500 are dealt with by the PSP; cases involving more than that amount are handled by the JP.

  19. Police effectiveness was undermined by the simultaneous application of Portuguese and local Chinese laws even after the MSAR government was established. Maintaining public security was hindered by lack of progress in translating relevant legal codes from Portuguese to Chinese. The Chinese did not adopt the Codified Law and Criminal Law until 1998, even though these law codes were to become the basis for legal hearings and proceedings in the MSAR (interviewee A; [10]).

  20. The Macau population was around 400,000 in 1999; 3,184 people worked at the PSP (a third were Marine Police) and the JP had 340 established posts.

  21. Mendes [21] argues that the lack of commitment to maintaining order in Macau can partly be attributed to domestic Portuguese party politics, as the President and the Prime Minister had conflicting approaches towards dealing with the Sino-Portuguese relationship.

  22. In 1999, the PRC government in Beijing declared that People’s Liberation Army (PLA) troops stationed in Macau were available to Ho to assist in maintaining public order. The presence of the PLA in Macau was generally perceived as a way for the Central People’s Government in Beijing and the MSAR government to boost public confidence in the Macau police and thus Macau SAR governance.

  23. Visitor arrivals increased by 1.9 % each year, reaching 2,382,156 in April 2012. An annual 9.5 % increase in visitors from Mainland China reached 1,391,119 (58.4 % of the total) by 2012. Most of the visitors came from the Guangdong (641,433), Fujian (72,755), Zhejiang (50,776), and Hunan (49,920) provinces. Nearly half (541,551) the visitors from mainland China travel to Macao under the FIT scheme [22].

  24. The GDP expanded by 18.4 % in real terms by the first quarter of 2012 over a year earlier. Private investment increased by 21.2 %, of which construction investment and equipment investment went up by 22.3 % and 19.2 % respectively [22]. Throughout this period the Macanese pataca has been pegged to the Hong Kong dollar, holding an exchange rate of about 8 pataca per US dollar.

  25. The rate of support towards Ho’s leadership dropped by 15 % between December 2004 and January 2007, from 84.7%to 69.3 % in January 2007 [23].

  26. Only 12 of the 29 members of Macau’s Legislative Assembly are directly elected. Ten other members are indirectly elected through functional constituencies and the remaining seven are appointed by the Chief Executive.

  27. Legislative Councilor Jose Pereira Coutinho made verbal inquiries to the Government on the crowd control arrangements planned by the police for that Labor Day He issued three substantive questions to the security authorities concerning excessive use of police force. See Macau Legislative Council Document No. 286/III/2007, available at http://www.al.gov.mo/interpelacao_oral/2006/07-286c.pdf , access date: 8 July 2007.

  28. See note 11, p.9

  29. Revisiting the official Chinese documents on the laws governing protests, demonstrations and public assemblies, there were only two booklets published by the Legislative Council of Macau SAR publicizing the legislations governing the freedom of petition and freedom of assembly and protests. The booklet published in 2001 titled ‘Exercising the Rights to Petition (Exercicio do direito de peticao) listed all the laws governing the behavior of petitioners and the law enforcers on this regard. The second book titled ‘Rights to Assembly and Protests- Second Edition’ (Direito de Reuniao e de Manifestacao) listed all the laws in this regard as well as the proceedings of legislators’ debates on its revision. However, no publicly accessible government document was available except of the Government Order No. 6694/M which mentioned some procedurally adjustments on the public order policing.

  30. Interviewee E made similar comments on this topic.

  31. The “administrative absorption of politics” was a strategy adopted by British colonial administers in Hong Kong before the 1970s to create a degree of participatory governance in the colony. In addition to so-called “Positive Non-Interventionism” by the MacLehorse regime, which had noted the increasing government presence in infrastructural and social policy involvement, this co-option strategy successfully brought the government and community together in Hong Kong despite the absence of democracy [15].

  32. Members of the Legislative Assembly in Macau were not all democratically elected. The Legislative Assembly was presided over by the Governor, who appointed the majority of its members. Only 12 out of 29 members were directly popularly elected in 2009.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Social Sciences, The Hong Kong Institute of Education, Tai Po, Hong Kong

    Lawrence K. K. Ho

  2. Department of Communication, University of Macau, Macau, China

    Agnes I. F. Lam

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  1. Lawrence K. K. Ho
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  2. Agnes I. F. Lam
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Correspondence to Lawrence K. K. Ho.

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Table 1 Informant profiles
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Ho, L.K.K., Lam, A.I.F. Transformation of Macau policing: from a Portuguese colony to China’s SAR. Crime Law Soc Change 61, 417–437 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10611-013-9493-3

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