City’s rule of law remains effective

The Ceremonial Opening of the Legal Year 2018 was held on Monday afternoon and, according to Hong Kong’s judicial tradition, the chief justice of the Court of Final Appeal, secretary for justice of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government and heads of the Hong Kong Bar Association and the Law Society of Hong Kong all spoke at the ceremony. The rule of law and the Basic Law are no doubt two main themes in their speeches. Both have faced some tests in recent years but, although the judiciary will face more challenges this year, Hong Kong society has no reason to fear the two might be compromised.

Newly appointed Secretary for Justice Teresa Cheng Yeuk-wah said in her speech at the ceremony that violent or unlawful means cannot justify an end however noble it is. Her words remind people of many instances in which political parties and organizations used political excuses to justify illegal activities and even criminal behavior in recent years. When some perpetrators were eventually brought to justice their supporters invariably accused the government of political prosecution, in total disregard of Hong Kong law and professional judgment of local courts. That is apparently a reason why Chief Justice of the Court of Final Appeal Geoffrey Ma Tao-li reiterated in his speech that politics is of no consequence in court decisions.

The justice secretary also made a very significant remark in her speech, pointing out the “inherent flexibility of the Basic Law to allow developments over time whilst preserving the fundamentals that must be observed”. The flexibility and the concept of Basic Law developing over time relate closely to the recent controversy surrounding the co-location arrangement, which would allow mainland immigration, customs and quarantine officers to clear passengers according to national laws before boarding mainlandbound trains in a port area inside the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Express Rail Link terminus in West Kowloon. The opposition camp has been crying foul over the arrangement ever since the SAR government announced it, but the National People’s Congress Standing Committee passed a decision last month that the co-location arrangements comply with the Basic Law of the HKSAR as well as the Constitution of the country.

The NPCSC decision has addressed concerns that allowing mainland officers to enforce national laws in a port area inside the XRL terminus in West Kowloon could violate Article 18 of the Basic Law. Some people in Hong Kong, including the Bar Association, which has voiced opposition to the arrangement, have queried that they could not find any article in the constitutional document that authorizes it. But Cheng, who will oversee the local legislation process in coming months, has clearly expressed a correct judgment on the nature of the Basic Law and we hope all those opponents to the arrangement would be enlightened by Cheng’s speech and come to their senses.