Hong Kong’s security and prison agencies plan to update the current prison rules to tighten visiting criteria for specific lawyers, doctors and chaplains to ensure they safeguard national security, prevent crime and maintain order and discipline of those behind bars.

In a paper submitted to the Legislative Council on Thursday, the Security Bureau and the Correctional Services Department laid out five “key purposes” that would form the grounds for prison staff to impose additional restrictions, conditions or prohibitions on inmates.

The proposed rules would also require correctional officers to apply for court warrants to be able to restrict visits to inmates from designated lawyers and doctors on the grounds of safeguarding national security.

“There were cases in the past where the visiting mechanism was abused by some people using ‘humanitarian relief’ as a pretext to visit for [the purpose of] influencing persons-in-custody with soft tactics,” authorities said in the paper.

However, authorities said that inmates would still be able to have access to confidential legal advice and consult other lawyers of their own choice under the new changes. Inmates could also lodge an appeal over the warrant.

Government sources said that the aim of amending the prison rules through subsidiary laws would be to update “outdated” rules and plug national security loopholes in legal and medical visit arrangements, adding that officials were keenly aware of the need to balance inmates’ rights with the new restrictions.