Hong Kong Minister Warns Against Oblivious Criticism of China
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EDITORIAL: In praise of ‘the last wall’
Chinese social media users took great delight in the scenes of rioters breaking into the US Capitol building on Wednesday, which they were allowed to see. It is too bad that they are unlikely to have been able to read or hear about another incident earlier that day, Hong Kong Chief Justice Geoffrey Ma’s (馬道立) final appearance on the bench, when he delivered a second strong defense of the rule of law and judicial independence in the territory in as many days.
Ma’s words carried even more resonance as they came just hours after more than 1,000 police officers were deployed across Hong Kong to arrest 53 democracy advocates, former lawmakers and academics for contravening the National Security Law by organizing an unofficial primary in July last year to nominate opposition candidates for the Legislative Council elections in September, which were later postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
January 5, 2021 05:37:22 pm
The outgoing chief justice of Hong Kong’s highest court addressed criticisms of the city’s judicial system and stressed the importance of the rule of law in a final press conference on Tuesday.
Chief Justice Geoffrey Ma, who will retire Sunday, discussed both the role of the judiciary and his own hopes for the future of Hong Kong. Citing several articles of Hong Kong’s Basic Law, Ma argued that in order to accomplish its role of “uphold[ing] the rule of law,” the judiciary must be independent from interference:
[The independence of the judiciary is] not a political statement. … What it means in essence is that in the handling of cases, judges are going to look only at the law … to decide cases according to the legal merits … fairly and justly, and not to be influenced by any beliefs, particularly political beliefs, but to be influenced only by the law. … All judges take the judicial oath, and this guides a judge as to what he or she sh
4 Min Read
HONG KONG (Reuters) -Hong Kong’s top court ordered media tycoon Jimmy Lai, the most high-profile person to be charged under the city’s national security law, back into custody on Thursday, saying a judge may have erred in a decision to release him on bail.
Media mogul Jimmy Lai, founder of Apple Daily, arrives the Court of Final Appeal, for hearing an appeal by the Department of Justice against the bail decision of Lai, in Hong Kong, China December 31, 2020. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu
The Court of Final Appeal’s ruling comes a week after Lai, one of Hong Kong’s most prominent democracy activists who is accused of colluding with foreign forces, was released on HK$10 million ($1.3 million) bail along with extensive restrictions that included barring him from using social media.
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