“Freedom of information is very important for Hong Kong as an international financial centre. Will the media be able to cite public interest defence for their news coverage like in Britain?” she said at a panel meeting of the Legislative Council on Tuesday.

Secretary for Security Chris Tang Ping-keung responded that authorities were actively studying inclusion of a “material public interest defence”, although he noted the media should also use common sense to determine what materials were risky.

“For example, weather forecasting has nothing to do with national security, but when it comes to where defence deployments are, this obviously endangers national security,” Tang said.

“I believe that when someone holds a document, he will have the common sense to understand what is authorised disclosure and what will be very likely to endanger national security.”

The public interest defence was made part of the 2003 national security bill after demands were raised during the consultation period. Ip was the security minister at the time in 2003 when the legislation drive fell apart after hundreds of thousands marched in protest over the bill.

The city government is looking to outlaw the theft of seven types of “state secrets”, including those involving “economic and social development” and “technological development” of the city or the country.

Albert Chen Hung-yee, a law professor from the University of Hong Kong who was a member of the Basic Law Committee until June, said the proposed definition of state secrets “is indeed very broad”. Noting that the defence had once been accepted by authorities, he said “the issue may need to be considered during this public consultation”.

But Exco member and barrister Ronny Tong Ka-wah, who opposed the 2003 bill at the time, argued he could not envision a scenario where someone being accused of having an intent to harm national security could argue his actions were upholding public interest.

“You can’t say that endangering national security is in the public interest. It’s simply unreasonable, it’s simply impossible. I think it’s a confusion in the concepts,” Tong told the Post. “So I’m sorry. I don’t think the secretary [Tang] has a well-thought-out idea on this issue.”

He said a journalist would not violate the new legislation as long as the news coverage of “state secrets” carried no intent of endangering national security.

Professor Francis Lee Lap-fung from the Chinese University of Hong Kong’s school of journalism and communications, however, supported the inclusion of such a provision as the distinction between a threat of national security and a cause for public interest could sometimes be blurry.

“From the perspective of the integrity of the legislation and the protection of press freedom, adding that defence is better than having nothing,” he said.

Ronson Chan Ron-sing, chairman of the Hong Kong Journalists Association, said he hoped the government would set out concrete definitions of state secrets for reporters to be able to gauge the risk of their work.

“If journalists can’t assess the risk of reporting particular information, they would tend to not report it,” Chan said.

The journalist added that a public interest defence, while beneficial, would not be sufficient to shield the industry from national security charges as he believed the city’s courts had interpreted laws narrowly in journalist Bao Choy Yuk-ling’s case and the sedition trial involving Stand News.

Choy became the first journalist in Hong Kong to be found guilty of breaching the law over a search performed on the government’s vehicle registry, while top editors at the now defunct Stand News were accused of sedition.

But Choy won a last-ditch appeal against her conviction last year, with the Court of Final Appeal ruling journalism was a valid reason for the freelance producer to access the records.

Eric Lai Yan-ho, a research fellow at the Centre for Asian Law at Georgetown University, said the broad and vague definition of state secrets and national security would offset the benefits of a public interest defence for journalists.

“There are elements of disinformation laws in anti-espionage and external interference charges, such as … disseminating information deemed to be false by authorities, [which] could constitute a crime,” Lai said.

“Whether a public interest defence is enough would require a look at how the government drafts the provision. The most ideal way is to exempt media outlets from the law instead of including them under a public interest defence.”