Foreign threat to HK’s rule of law

Hong Kong’s new legal year officially started on Monday with an opening ceremony held at City Hall in Central. In keeping with tradition, legal leaders in the city, including Secretary for Justice Teresa Cheng Yeuk-wah, Chief Justice of the Court of Final Appeal Geoffrey Ma Tao-li and heads of the two major trade associations of legal professionals, took turn to deliver a speech at the opening ceremony. They talked about various aspects of the administration of justice in the city and expounded their views on different legal issues. But almost none of them failed to emphasize the importance of safeguarding judicial independence and the rule of law.

That the legal leaders unanimously vowed to uphold judicial independence and rule of law surprised few, given that the legal system underpinned by the principles of judicial independence and rule of law has contributed significantly to Hong Kong’s socio-economic success over the decades and is considered to be vital to its continuing success. But more importantly, the city’s judicial independence and rule of law have been under attack by foreign politicians over the past year when the rulings on several cases didn’t go the way they wanted.

Immediately after the High Court on June 11 2018 passed a sentence of six years’ imprisonment on separatist Edward Leung Tin-kei for the crime he committed in the Mong Kok riot in 2016, Chris Patten, Hong Kong’s last governor, said the law was open to abuse, and that it was “being used politically to place extreme sentences on the pandemocrats and other activists”. This flies in the face of the fact that Leung was convicted after a trial by jury of the offence of rioting under the Public Order Ordinance, a statute enacted by the British Hong Kong government in 1970.

Patten and other like-minded politicians— such as those behind Hong Kong Watch— also showed contempt for the city’s judiciary and rule of law when they accused Hong Kong judges of making “political judgments” in the legal cases involving the disqualification of lawmakers. In a report published on March 7 of 2018, Hong Kong Watch said the disqualification of lawmakers amounted to “unaccountable political screening”.

China-bashing foreign politicians like Chris Patten and some members of the local opposition camp have made it a habit to call court verdicts that did not go the way they wanted “political decisions”. In doing so, they demonstrate a willingness to damage the reputation of the city’s judiciary as well as the rule of law just for promoting their political ends or achieving some narrow partisan interests. Legal leaders in the city had every reason to reaffirm their determination to uphold the city’s judicial independence and rule of law.