- 20 A B A 50. Relevant for the present purposes, the original form of B section 50(6) provided that a police officer might search an apprehended C D person for any article which might reasonably be suspected of “throwing light on the character or the activities of the person or his associate”. It C D was therefore believed that under the original provision, an arrested E F person might be searched for reasons that might not be relevant to the circumstances of the arrest, or where there was no basis for suspecting an associate of having committed an offence. G H E F The authority was concerned that there was a serious risk that the exercise of this search power would be regarded as an arbitrary interference with privacy and thus in breach of G H BOR14, in the sense that it went beyond, and was thus disproportionate I J K L to, what was necessary to achieve the relevant objective. See paragraph 8 of the LegCo Brief. 51. The amendment of section 50(6) to its present form5 was intended to address the above concern and risk about arbitrariness. It is I J K L pertinent to note that the authority was of the view the amendment would M M satisfy the proportionality requirement in conducting a warrantless search N by bringing it in line with the common law principles. This was made N clear at paragraph 13 of the LegCo Brief as follows: O O “s.50(6) – power to search arrested person P P 13 We propose that the power of search and seizure in this subsection (where no warrant is required) in respect of arrested persons should be restricted to things that the police officer reasonably suspects to be of value in the investigation of any offence which the arrested person has committed or is suspected of having committed. This formulation is derived from common law principles.” (emphasis added) Q R S R S 5 T Q Which provides that the search should be related to what the police officer “may reasonably suspect to be of value (whether by itself or together with anything else) to the investigation of any offence that the person has committed or is reasonably suspected of having committed.” T U U V V