Amendments to fugitive extradition laws long overdue

The homicide case of a Hong Kong resident in Taiwan and the fact that the suspect who fled back to Hong Kong could not be legally extradited to Taiwan for trial has caused public outrage. Through this case, two major shortcomings of our fugitive extradition laws have been exposed.

Firstly, the current one-off “casebased” approach adopted by the Security Bureau to handle extradition requests inadvertently built in a window of opportunity for a fugitive, who learnt of the extradition request and had time to flee. Secondly, the current fugitive extradition laws expressly prohibited any application to any other parts of China, including Taiwan. As a result, Hong Kong could not legally hand over the murder suspect to Taiwan for a proper trial so that justice could be done.

Under the circumstances, the Security Bureau proposed two amendments after reviewing the existing fugitive extradition laws. Firstly, to authorize the chief executive to issue a certificate to trigger a provisional arrest warrant applied from the court. The second proposal is to enable the one-off casebased approach to be applicable to any places with which Hong Kong has not entered into any mutual assistance agreement on criminal matters.

These legislative proposals will enable Hong Kong to uphold justice and strengthen cooperation with other places around the world.

In fact, Hong Kong has been one of the signatories of the United Nations Convention against Corruption in which Section 44(18) states “State Parties shall seek to conclude bilateral and mutual agreements... to enhance the effectiveness of extradition.” It is crystal clear that Hong Kong has a duty to carry out its obligation under the convention. However, Hong Kong has entered mutual legal arrangements with only 32 jurisdictions. It has surrender of fugitive offenders’ agreements with only 20 jurisdictions. In light of the two limitations mentioned above, this area of extradition laws has been underdeveloped for 21 years since their enactment in 1997.

Some commentators criticized the proposal, claiming the amendments will lead to “innocent victims being extradited to the Chinese mainland, where fair trials cannot be guaranteed”. This argument is misconceived for the following reasons.

In September 2015, the United States repatriated Chinese criminal suspect Yang Jinjun, who was on red wanted list, despite the fact the Chinese mainland does not have an The author is a barrister-at-law and vice-chairman of Hong Kong Legal Exchange Foundation. extradition treaty with the US. On May 9, 2015, Singapore returned Li Huabo who was the No 2 fugitive on the wanted list. Cambodia sent Chinese economic fugitive Sun Xin back to China on June 8, 2015.

These examples illustrate the fact that the Chinese legal system has been well recognized because fugitive offenders can be sent back on the basis of criminal matters perpetrated on the mainland.

Lastly, the Taiwan homicide case has highlighted a loophole in the existing judicial system in Hong Kong — which allows a suspect killer to seek a safe haven in Hong Kong. It is no longer acceptable that the mainland, Taiwan and Macao are excluded from the provisions set out in the extradition laws on surrendering crime suspects to other jurisdictions.

Murder is the most serious offense in terms of criminality in the spectrum of criminal law. It is time for Hong Kong people to support the proposed amendments by the Security Bureau without further ado.