To meet the different needs of users, we offer two modes of the BLIS System, namely the Individual Section Mode and the Whole Enactment Mode.
Individual Section Mode
Whole Enactment Mode
| PART 9 | To view, download and print the complete text of an Ordinance or subsidiary legislation in PDF format |
PART 1
To access a particular section of an Ordinance or subsidiary legislation
- Click [Legislation] on the homepage to enter the
Individual Section Mode.
- At the right frame, you will see a list of Ordinances, arranged consequentially according to chapter numbers. If you have not made any choice under the Selection Menu, the default list shown will be the current version of English Ordinances and subsidiary legislation ("Sub. Leg."). The list starts at Chapter 1 and shows 100 chapters. You may click the [Previous List] or [Next List] button to view the previous or next 100 chapters respectively.
- There is a field called [Go to Chapter]. You may enter the chapter number of the chapter that you would like to browse . For instance, if you want to view Chapter 30 (the Wills Ordinance), you may enter 30 in the input box and click the [Enter] button. Chapter 30 will appear on top of the list in the right frame, followed by chapters with consequential numbers.
- To see the headings of individual provisions of a particular Ordinance or Sub. Leg., you may click the Chapter Number or Chapter Title of the Ordinance or Sub. Leg.
- If an Ordinance has more than 100 provisions, you have to click the [Next List] button several times to view the remaining provisions. If you want to view a particular provision of an Ordinance, you can also make use of the first search form of the Advanced Search (Search for section(s) or enactment(s)). For details, please refer to Part 6.
To view the content of a particular section of an Ordinance
or subsidiary legislation
- After you have clicked the title of an Ordinance or Sub. Leg. to display the headings of individual provisions, you may view the content of a provision by clicking on its heading.
- To view the previous or next provision of the same enactment, click the [Previous provision] or [Next provision] button respectively.
- To switch between Chinese and English, click the [¤¤¤å] or [English] button respectively.
- To go back to the list of laws, click the [Back to List of Enactments] button.
To view the content of the past version of a particular section of an Ordinance or subsidiary legislation
- After entering the Individual Section Mode, select [Current & Past] in the Selection Menu and click [Enter].
- After clicking the Chapter Number or Chapter Title of the Ordinance or Sub. Leg. that you would like to view, a list of the headings of the provisions of that Ordinance or Sub. Leg. will be displayed. If a twistie [
] appears at the left of the heading of an individual provision, it means that the provision has one or more past versions. If you click the twistie, all versions of the provision (as at different dates) will be displayed.
- To view the contents of a past version of the provision as at a particular date, simply click the heading of that version.
To view the content of a particular constitutional instrument or relevant instrument
- BLIS contains a number of constitutional instruments and other relevant instruments (e.g., the Basic Law and the Rules of Procedure of the Legislative Council). These instruments have been given an unofficial reference number for identification purposes.
- To view the full list of these instruments, simply click the [Go to Constitutional Documents] link in the Selection Menu. You may then scroll down the list to select the instrument you would like to view.
- If you know the unofficial reference number of a particular instrument, you may browse that instrument by entering the reference number in the [Go to Chapter] field in the Selection Menu and clicking [Enter].
To conduct a quick search
- Click [Legislation] on the homepage to enter the Individual Section Mode.
- Before searching, you should first of all make your choice in the Selection Menu. For instance, if you want to search for sections of Sub. Leg. that contain a certain word, you should click [Sub. Leg.] in the Selection Menu and then click the [Enter] button.
- When the right frame displays the list of the Laws that you have just selected, you can type the keyword in the quick search input box marked with "Enter search keyword(s)" and press enter or click the
.
- You can conduct searches with multiple search criteria by adding the "and", "or", "and not" operators.
Examples - If you want to search for sections that contain both the word "ship" and the word "boat", enter: "ship and boat" at the input field. If you want to search for sections that contain either the word "ship" or the word "boat", enter: "ship or boat". If you want to search for sections that have the word "ship" but do not also have the word "boat", enter: "ship and not boat". Be careful, however, when using the "and not" search function. For example, if you want all documents that refer to the Chief Executive but you do not want documents that refer to the Chief Executive in Council and you enter "Chief Executive and not in Council", then a document that contains both "Chief Executive" and "Chief Executive in Council" will also be omitted. If you need to find all relevant documents, you have to use the "and not" function carefully.
- Proximity operators (i.e. "sentence" and "paragraph") are also supported. That is, you can search for words that are found in the same sentence or paragraph within a section.
- Phrase Search - if you enter more than one word not separated by operator words, you will find only sections that contain that exact word combination. It is not possible to search directly for hyphenated words. For example, instead of searching for "air-conditioning" with the hyphen, search for "air conditioning" as a phrase without the hyphen. If you need to include, within a phrase, operators such as "and", "or", "and not", "sentence" and "paragraph", you must enclose the operator word in quotation marks. For example, a search for "ships and boats" will find only the phrase of the 3 words.
- You can use wild card characters in your search word to search for word variations. The question mark (?) and asterisk mark (*) can be inserted into search terms to substitute for a single letter (?) or one or more letters (*). Thus a search for [mar?] will produce [mark] but not [market] whereas a search for [mar*] will give both and others. The marks can be used in combination and anywhere but the beginning of the search word.
- The provisions that contain your search word(s) are displayed in order of relevance. That is, the heading of the provision that contains the most search words is displayed first. Users may click [Sort by Cap] (
) or [Sort by Relevance] (
) to switch the display of the provisions containing the search word(s) in order of Chapter number or relevance to the search word(s). - You can then click on the heading to view the content of the provision.
To conduct an advanced search
- We have designed seven search forms for advanced search.
They are:
- Search for section(s) or enactments(s)
- Search for word(s)
- Search for word(s) in definition(s)
- Search for Law as at specified date
- Search for Law between a range of dates
- Search for internal cross reference - this function works for English language only
- Search for external reference - this function works
for English language only
- Search for section(s) or enactments(s)
- Before searching, you should first of all make your choice
in the Selection Menu. For instance, if you want to search for
sections of Sub. Leg., you should click [Sub. Leg.] in the Menu
and then click the [Enter].
- When the List of Laws at the right frame displays what you
have just selected, you can then click the [Advanced Search]
button at the top.
- At the menu of [Advanced Search], click any one of the search
forms.
- At the menu of every search form, the current selection
of Laws will be displayed at the upper part of the right frame.
If the selection is not what you want, you should repeat steps
2, 3 and 4.
- Search for section(s) or enactment(s):
- You can enter the chapter number(s), chapter title, section number(s),
Schedule Number(s), and/or Search Word(s) to search. You need not use
all of the fields.
- When using the chapter title field, it is best to enter
only some of the words of the chapter title, either as a
phrase or using the "and" operator. Otherwise, unless you
enter the full title correctly, you may get zero matches.
For instance, if you want to search for sections of Wild
Animals Protection Ordinance (Cap. 170), you can enter in
the chapter title field:
[wild animals]; or
[wild and animals]; or
[animals and protection].
- If you want to do a search on a particular Chapter and
all of its Sub. Leg., type the Cap. number followed by a
dash and the Cap. number again followed by a large letter
suffix such as ZZ (e.g., 1-1ZZ) in the chapter number(s)
field. (Remember: If you want to search for Ordinances and
Sub. Leg., please make sure you have selected [Ord. & Sub.
Leg.] in the Selection Menu first (i.e. steps 2-4). Otherwise,
your search will return zero result.)
- Another example: If you enter 5-7 in the Chapter number(s)
field and 2 in the section number(s) field, you will get
Section 2, Rule 2, Paragraph 2, etc.
of Chapters 5, 6 and 7.
- You can enter the chapter number(s), chapter title, section number(s),
Schedule Number(s), and/or Search Word(s) to search. You need not use
all of the fields.
- Search for word(s):
On each of the 5 input fields you can enter a word or a phrase. You can connect each field by the operator "and", "or", "sentence" or "paragraph". You can also specify whether you want to search for upper/lower case sensitive word(s) or non case-sensitive word(s).
- Search for word(s) in definition(s):
You can search for word(s) that appear anywhere in a defined term of the Laws. You can also specify the chapter number or title.
- Search for laws as at specified date:
You can search for Laws as at any date on or after 30 June 1997. The search can be restricted to a particular Chapter(s) or section or include the whole database; and a search term may also be added.
Here is an example. Suppose section 2 of Cap. 123 has 9 versions: 15/12/2008, 31/12/2005, 31/12/2004, 01/04/1998, 27/03/1998, 22/12/1997, 07/11/1997, 01/07/1997 and 30/06/1997. We want to search different versions as at different dates.
First of all, you should select [Current and Past Versions] of English Ordinance at the Selection Menu and then click the [Enter] button.
At the right frame, click [Advanced Search] and then choose [Search for Law as at specified date].
At the [Chapter Number(s)] field, enter [123]. At the [Section Number(s)] field, enter [2]. At the [Law as at] field, enter [01/01/98]. The system would retrieve the 22/12/1997 version of section 2 of Cap. 123, because it was the current version as at 01/01/1998.
If you enter [123] in the [Chapter Number(s)] field, [2] in the [Section Number(s)] field, and [01/12/97] in the [Law as at] field, the system would retrieve the 07/11/1997 version of section 2 of Cap. 123, because it was the current version as at 01/12/1997. (The 22/12/1997 and the later versions were not yet created on 01/12/1997.)
If you enter [123] in the [Chapter Number(s)] field, [2] in the [Section Number(s)] field, and [01/08/97] in the [Law as at] field, the system would retrieve the 01/07/1997 version of section 2 of Cap. 123, because it was the current version as at 01/08/1997. (The 07/11/1997 and the later versions were not yet created on 01/08/1997.)
- Search for Law between a range of dates:
If you wish to see if there are any changes to a law between certain dates, by using this search form, you can find all versions of sections between those dates.
Here is an example. Suppose section 2 of Cap. 123 has 9 versions: 15/12/2008, 31/12/2005, 31/12/2004, 01/04/1998, 27/03/1998, 22/12/1997, 07/11/1997, 01/07/1997 and 30/06/1997. We want to search all versions between 30/06/1997 and 01/01/1998.
First of all, you should select [Current & Past] versions of English Ordinance under the Selection Menu and then click the [Enter] button.
At the right frame, click [Advanced Search] and then choose [Search for Law between a range of dates].
At the [Chapter Number(s)] field, enter 123. At the [Section Number(s)] field, enter [2]. At the [From Date] field, enter [30/06/97]. At the [To Date] field, enter [01/01/98]. The system would retrieve the four versions (30/06/1997, 01/07/1997, 07/11/1997 and 22/12/1997) of section 2 of Cap. 123, because they are all within the specified date range.
- Search for internal cross reference:
This form works in English legislation only. You can enter one section number and one chapter number. For example, if you enter [5] in the [Search for Section Number] field and [10] in the [In Chapter Number] field, then the system will give you all the sections within Chapter [10] that have references to section 5, excluding section 5 itself. Please note that some extraneous sections that have the word "section" and the number "5" but are not actual cross references to section 5 may also be retrieved. The search form recognizes that in some legislation the cross reference is to a regulation, bylaw, paragraph, order, rule, etc.
- Search for external reference:
This form applies to English legislation only. You can enter one chapter number in the [Search for Chapter Number] field and several chapter numbers in the [In Chapter Number(s)] field (usually you would leave this field blank). For example, you can enter [1] in the [Search for Chapter Number] field and [5, 7] in the [In Chapter Number(s)] field. Then the system will give you all the sections in Chapters 5 and 7 that have referred to Chapter 1.
- The provisions that contain your search word(s) are displayed in order of relevance. That is, the heading of the provision that contains the most search words is displayed first. Users may click [Sort by Cap] () or [Sort by Relevance] () to switch the display of the provisions containing the search word(s) in order of Chapter number or relevance to the search word(s).
To select and print particular provisions in Individual Section Mode
- The Printing List (
) allows you to select particular provisions in same or different chapters of the Legislation Database and save in the ¡§Printing list¡¨. You may print those selected provisions in the list as a single HTML-format document in a separate window.
- The provisions in the Printing list are displayed in the same order you add the individual provisions to the Printing List.
- To open and view the ¡§Printing List¡¨, click the [Open Printing List ] at the upper right corner of the [List of Enactments] page. Also, you can refresh the Printing List anytime by clicking [Open Printing List ] again.
- To add a provision to the Printing list, you may either:
- click [Add to Printing List ] shown at the upper right corner of any provision;
- click the icon [] next to the title of a provision in the [List of Enactments] page ; or
- click [Add to Printing List ] shown at the upper right corner of the search results after performing a simple search or an advanced search.
- click [Add to Printing List
- When browsing the ¡§Printing List¡¨, you may use the following function keys to manage the provisions added:
- [] ¡V To print all the provisions in the Printing List as a single HTML-format document;
- [] ¡V To remove those particular provisions of which the boxes next to the titles have been checked by you; and
- [] ¡V To remove all the provisions from the Printing List.
- [] ¡V To print all the provisions in the Printing List as a single HTML-format document;
- The Printing List can maintain a maximum of 30 provisions at one time.
To access the Individual Section Mode by Lotus Notes R6, 7 or 8 to use the additional features that are not
available with common web browsers
- Following is a list of the additional features available
with the use of Lotus Notes R6, 7 or 8:
- Both languages of a section can be viewed on screen
at the same time.
- Sections retrieved in a search can be sorted into "Chapter"
and "section" order.
- Multiple sections can be printed, in relevance or Chapter and section order, enabling the printing of a whole Ordinance or Subsidiary Legislation.
- Sections can be previewed at the bottom of the screen
without having to open the section.
- An alphabetical listing and count of all of the words
used in the Laws can be viewed.
- Users can specify that a search will return common variations
of terms. For example, a search for [canopy] will return
[canopy] as well as [canopies].
- Both languages of a section can be viewed on screen
at the same time.
- However, using Lotus Notes to access BLIS has the disadvantage
that Notes access is slower in performance than browser access
due to the greater amount of data that Notes downloads to your
PC. Therefore, if you are not concerned about the above features,
or you just want to have a quick reference to the Laws of Hong
Kong, you may prefer to use a web browser to access BLIS.
- To access BLIS with Lotus Notes, users should set up their
Lotus Notes R6, 7 or 8 as explained in the manual
[Setup Guide for Accessing
BLIS on the Internet with Lotus Notes [format: zip]].
- Users should also refer to the document
[Using BLIS on the
Internet with Lotus Notes [format: zip]] for instructions
on how to use Notes to operate BLIS.
To view, download and print the complete text of an Ordinance or Sub. Leg. in PDF format
- Click [Legislation] on the homepage to enter the
Individual Section Mode.
- Click the [Whole Enactment Mode] button in the Selection
Menu to enter the Whole Enactment Mode.
- The right frame will display a list of 100 chapters starting
at Chapter 1. Click the [Next List] or [Previous List] button to scroll
over or back.
- To view a complete list of the titles of an Ordinance and
of all items of Sub. Leg. made under it, click on the title
of the Ordinance.
- You may also get the list by entering the chapter number
of the Ordinance at the Selection Menu and then clicking the
[Enter] button.
- To view the complete text of an Ordinance or Sub. Leg., click on the title of the Ordinance or Sub. Leg. The table of contents of the Ordinance or Sub. Leg. and a link to download the complete text of the enactment will be displayed. Click on the link and download the text in PDF format. You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to view the PDF document.[Click here to download].
- To go to another Ordinance, repeat step 5. Alternatively, you may click the [Back to List of Enactments] button at the top right hand corner to go to the list of Laws. You may then use the [Next List] or [Previous List] button to scroll over or back the list of Laws until you see the title of the Ordinance displayed.
- There is also a PDF icon
next to the Chapter Number field appearing on the top left corner of the contents of an individual provision in the Individual Section Mode. You may click this icon and go to the Whole Enactment Mode of the corresponding Ordinance or Sub. Leg. to download the complete text of the Ordinance or Sub. Leg.