Before the bill was gazetted and submitted to the legislature last Friday, when details of offences and penalties were revealed for the first time, the public could only read an outline of the new legislation in a consultation paper issued on January 30.

The bill has since been fast-tracked at Legco, which convened a special full session last Friday to clear the first reading. The bills committee immediately began deliberations on the original 181 clauses as well as the amendments in more than 40 hours of meetings spanning seven days.

Secretary for Justice Paul Lam Ting-kwok on Thursday maintained that the domestic national security legislation would safeguard human rights, praising lawmakers for their “high-quality” discussions in the past seven days as he addressed the final meeting of the bills committee.

“Not only must we submit an assignment as soon as possible that has been overdue for almost 27 years, but the assignment must also be high-quality work that is formulated in strict accordance with the legislative process. The work of the bills committee has indeed achieved this,” Lam said.

The amendment cleared by lawmakers on Thursday ranged from small fixes such as spelling errors and incorrect word choice to changing the title of an offence and new clauses, with many amendments effectively making the bill tougher than its original draft.

One amendments included a clause that empowered the chief executive in council – the city leader acting after consulting the key decision-making Executive Council – to make subsidiary legislation “for the needs of” safeguarding national security.

New offences under such subsidiary legislation could result in a maximum penalty of seven years in jail and a HK$500,000 (US$63,910) fine. Under the negative vetting procedure, such legislation can be enacted first and scrutinised by the legislature later.

The government said the suggested change was based on lawmakers’ comments during the scrutiny of the bill, so as to “deal with unforeseen circumstances” in future.

Officials only said these might cover “implementation details” and “administrative regulations” but offered no further information.

Exco convenor and former security minister Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee said she welcomed the authorities’ swift acceptance of her suggestion on the topic, but officials rejected her idea of making laws for codes of practice because these would not affect the public.

Apollonia Liu Lee Ho-kei, deputy permanent secretary for security, also told lawmakers it was an approach of “transparency” to stipulate the maximum penalty for offences that might be introduced through subsidiary legislation.

The government also proposed that the chief executive in council may, by introducing subsidiary legislation, specify a class of people as public officers to broaden the scope of “public officers” for incitement to disaffection or state secret offences.

The authorities reasoned that the “forward-looking” flexibility would allow the city’s leader to include “some” staff members of public organisations who “may have a greater chance to gain access to state secrets” apart from government employees, contractors and judicial officers.

Another amendment included renaming the offence of “external interference” by adding “endangering national security” after it to highlight any crime linked to improper means would be separated from “normal international exchanges”, in commerce, academia and culture.

The government also defined “international organisation” as consisting of two or more countries, regions, places or entities entrusted with a function, up from the previous one.

Earlier in the vetting process, Ip had questioned how an organisation with members from just one “place” could be considered an “international organisation” and thus be deemed an “external force”.

But the government did not revise other definitions under “external force”, including those of “related” individuals and entities, which had also been described as very broad by the Exco convenor and Hong Kong Bar Association.

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The bill also retains a provision that will strip all offenders of national security offences of suspended sentences.

Law scholar Simon Young Ngai-man had earlier urged lawmakers to consider only applying the rule to offences punishable by life or 14 years’ imprisonment.

Under the latest changes, a suspect can be labelled an absconder immediately after a court warrant is issued after a six-month wait requirement was removed. The change was made after lawmakers said the security chief should be given maximum flexibility to deal with absconders.

While a new criminal waiver was introduced for business partners and tenants who had signed contracts with absconders before the latter were specified, officials stressed at the meeting on Thursday that the former would remain banned from making payments to absconders under the new law.

In addition to two fixes that involved incorrect or omission of cross-references to other clauses, there were also seven corrections of typos in the English version, one of which drew a rare challenge from both Ip and the Legco legal adviser at the otherwise smooth Thursday meeting.

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Legislators at the committee have not moved any amendments for the security bill.

The domestic national security legislation is designed to target five types of offences: treason; insurrection; theft of state secrets and espionage; sabotage endangering national security; and external interference.

It is mandated under Article 23 of the Basic Law, the city’s mini-constitution, and will complement the 2020 Beijing-imposed national security law.