Bar Association chairman Victor Dawes said on Friday that Hong Kong can consider including a "public interest" defence to the offence of leaking state secrets under the proposed Article 23 national security legislation, although the threshold should not be too low.

In its consultation paper, the government proposed that state secrets would include classified information on economic, social and technological developments in China and the SAR, as well as major policy decisions and defence and diplomatic activities.

Security Secretary Chris Tang had earlier said officials would consider leaks that are in the public interest to be an exception.

Dawes said the threshold for such a defence should not be set too low, and the burden of proof by the prosecution should be clear.

“In some countries, when dealing with state secrets or information security, there are indeed such defences. So it is something that we should definitely consider,” he said.

“But if we are to do this, I think the threshold will have to be stated very clearly. The threshold can't be too low, of course.”

Dawes added that the defence should be available to everyone, not just journalists.