The three officials are all principal officials of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. The Commissioner of Police is subordinate to the Secretary for Security, but these two are not subordinate to the Secretary for Justice.
In addition to the Chief Executive, the administrative agency of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government has a three-tier structure. The first level is the Secretary-General, the second level is the Policy Bureau, collectively referred to as the "Three Departments and Thirteen Bureaus", and the third level is the Bureau. The layers are departments. A few agencies, such as the Independent Commission Against Corruption, the Office of the Ombudsman, the Audit Office, the Chief Executive's Office, and the National Security Council, are directly under the leadership of the Chief Executive.
The Department of Justice is responsible for the legal affairs of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) government, including handling most criminal prosecutions, drafting all bills proposed by the HKSAR government, and providing legal advice to the HKSAR government. The Department of Justice does not have a policy bureau and is headed by the Secretary for Justice, who is the chief legal adviser to the Chief Executive.
The Security Bureau is one of the policy bureaus under the Chief Secretary for Administration. It is mainly responsible for maintaining public security in Hong Kong, including public security, immigration, customs, prisons, firefighting and ambulance services. As early as the British colonial period, in order to maintain public security in Hong Kong, the British established a Defense Department, and the person in charge was called the Defense Department. In 1973, the Defense Branch was renamed the Security Branch of the Chief Secretary's Department, and the head of the department was renamed the Security Department. After Hong Kong returned to China on July 1, 1997, the Security Branch was renamed the Security Bureau and became the Policy Bureau of the Chief Secretary's Department, renamed the Secretary for Constitutional Affairs. The current Secretary for Security, Mr Lee Ka-chiu, was the Deputy Commissioner (Management) of the Police Force and is the first Secretary of Security to be held by a police officer.
The Hong Kong Police Force is one of the departments under the Security Bureau. During the British colonial period, the English name of the police force was Hong Kong Police Force. In some official documents of the police force, Police Department was also used. The Chinese name was not fixed and was sometimes translated as Narcotics Control Administration and sometimes as Hong Kong Police Force. In 1935, the police force was officially named the Hong Kong Police Force, and both the Hong Kong Police Force and the Hong Kong Police Force were used as auxiliary names.
The Commissioner of Police is the supreme commander of the Hong Kong Police Force and the general manager of all Hong Kong police officers. Commonly known as the "First Brother", he is the highest-ranking Constitutional Affairs Committee level in the Hong Kong Police Force; because In the early years, the person in charge of translators for the Hong Kong government was different every time, and the official Chinese translation of the police chief also changed from time to time. The Chinese translations that have appeared in government archives include Chief Superintendent, Chief Duty Officer, and Chief of Police of Hong Kong. By 1909, the official name was initially determined to be Hong Kong Police Road. In 1917, it was renamed Police Department, and in 1930 it was changed to Police Road. Yuan is the chief inspector of police. In 1935, he was officially named the Commissioner of Police, which is still used today. The military ranks of the Hong Kong Police Force are based on the British police ranks, and the British police ranks are based on the British military ranks. They are generally divided into four levels: general, lieutenant, sergeant and soldier. The Commissioner of Police is a general.
After the return of Hong Kong, the Commissioner of Police was nominated by the Chief Executive and appointed by the State Council (Central People's Government). The Commissioner of Police is responsible to the Security Bureau and the Chief Executive for the management and efficiency of the Police Force. He is assisted by three Deputy Commissioners, one of whom is responsible for operations, and has two divisions: Operations Branch and Crime and Security Branch; The other is responsible for management affairs and has three branches: Personnel and Training Branch, Inspectorate Affairs Branch and Finance and Administrative Planning Branch; the last one is responsible for national security and has one branch: National Security Branch. The last one is responsible for national security and has one division: the National Security Division.