Charges of political meddling baseless: HK govt
The Hong Kong SAR government on Sunday rejected charges of “political interference” in the jailing of three leading student activists as unfounded and groundless.
“There’re absolutely no political considerations involved. The allegations that the court had acted under political interference are totally unfounded and groundless,” a government spokesperson said in a statement on Sunday night.
The government made the response, after the foreign media and groups and some in the local community made such accusations, as the city’s Court of Appeal last Thursday revoked non-custodial sentences handed down by a lower court on Joshua Wong Chifung, Nathan Law Kwun-chung and Alex Chow Yong-kang, and jailed them for six to eight months for taking part in an unlawful assembly that sparked the illegal “Occupy Central” movement in 2014.
The allegations that the court had acted under political interference are totally unfounded and groundless.”
Hong Kong SAR government spokesperson
The entire process in the case — from the decision to prosecute, conviction, the Department of Justice’s application for a sentence review and the judgment of the Court of Appeal — had proceeded in accordance with Hong Kong’s effective legal system, the government said. Hong Kong’s core values, including the rule of law and judicial independence, have all along been protected by the Basic Law in the past 20 years, and are widely recognized by the international community, the statement continued.
The Office of the Commissioner of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the Hong Kong SAR on Sunday also strongly objected to any form of interference by foreign governments, organizations, institutions or individuals in Hong Kong’s judiciary, Hong Kong affairs, or the nation’s internal affairs, as Hong Kong is part of China.
It solemnly requested that the relevant countries abide by the basic norms governing international relations, and stop and correct their erroneous deeds.
A spokesperson for the Commissioner’s Office stressed that Hong Kong is a society with the rule of law. Its residents’ rights of expression, assembly, demonstration and protest are fully protected by the Basic Law and other laws in Hong Kong.
Hong Kong’s political heavyweights have thrown their weight behind a higher court’s decision to jail three student activists for taking part in an unlawful assembly that triggered the “Occupy Central” movement in 2014.
They said the Court of Appeal’s decision is in line with the law, and denounced accusations made against the judges, saying the judicial system should be left out of politics.
Executive Council member and Senior Counsel Ronny Tong Ka-wah warned on Sunday that the groundless and irrational allegations against the court would greatly impair the city’s rule of law.
Tong — a former chairman of the Hong Kong Bar Association and ex-lawmaker — accused certain scholars, veteran law practitioners and social leaders of misleading the foreign media with their political bias by saying that the court’s decision was aimed at crushing young people’s ideals. Such remarks, he said, threaten Hong Kong’s rule of law and it would take a long time to rebuild it once it’s damaged.
The Court of Appeal last Thursday overruled a lower court’s non-custodial sentences imposed on student activists Joshua Wong Chi-fung, Nathan Law Kwun-chung and Alex Chow Yong-kang and jailed them from six to eight months after noting that their original community service orders were too lenient in view of the severity of the offenses.
He urged the community not to drag the courts into political disputes to further undermine the rule of law.
Executive Council Convenor Bernard Chan rejected the accusations made by the foreign media and groups, saying they are unfamiliar with Hong Kong’s system, and their attacks on Hong Kong’s judicial system will adversely affect the city’s long-term development.
He said the law should be respected and observed, and Hong Kong people should know that the city’s courts are not biased.
In their written judgment, the Court of Appeal judges noted there’s an unhealthy trend in society to mislead young people to resort to unlawful means to achieve their so-called lofty goals, disregarding the illegality of what they do.
Paul Shieh Wing-tai, former chairman of the Hong Kong Bar Association, also voiced support for the Court of Appeal’s decision, saying Benny Tai Yiu-ting, one of the initiators of the illegal mass occupation movement in 2014, should be blamed for the jailing of the student activists.
He said the judges had made it crystal clear that no matter what rights the defendants exercised, they should not expect leniency once they exceed the limit of violence.