From HKFP – Chief Justice Andrew Cheung Kui-nung uses the ceremonial opening of the legal year to state that courts are not designed to serve political ends…
The chief justice said on Monday that national security cases, despite attracting attention due to their “political sensitivity,” were no different from other cases processed by the city’s courts.
“The same principles of law apply in national security cases as in others,” Cheung said. “Judges at all levels are expected to, and indeed do, adhere to them in the adjudication of cases.”
“Judges, far from being designed to serve political ends, are bound by legal principles. Courts are not arbiters of public opinion, nor are they an extension of the prosecution authority; they are, above all, guardians of the law,” he added.
Lots of things perform roles for which they were not designed. But why does he feel a need to say this? Is it because NatSec courts have specially chosen judges, do not have juries, and nearly always side with the prosecution – ie the government? Hence opposition politicians, wearers of T-shirts, posters on Facebook and others being convicted for things that were never considered crimes up until around five years ago.
As if to pre-empt this point…
[The CJ] also warned against drawing “sweeping conclusions” about the rule of law or judicial independence based on a few high-profile national security cases.
Mark Clifford, former SCMP editor and Next board member, and author of a book on Jimmy Lai, does an interview with The Wire China. Includes some ‘sweeping conclusions’…
Jimmy Lai was put in jail four years ago. He and I had been doing a lot of weekly live stream events through the second half of 2020. I was angry and exasperated, but I was also in disbelief. I couldn’t understand how the [Hong Kong authorities] could throw this guy in jail for basically practicing journalism.
…I don’t quite understand the charges honestly. They seem to be about collusion with foreign forces, because he had met people like John Lewis or former vice president Mike Pence, or former secretary of state Mike Pompeo, or national security advisor John Bolton or Nancy Pelosi when she was Speaker of the House … Tung Chee-hwa was in the White House a lot more than Jimmy Lai was.
…But the narrative seems to be that somehow he was this evil mastermind who got a couple of million Hong Kong people out to protest in 2019 and was convincing Hong Kong people that they should have something that, as far as Chinese are concerned, they don’t deserve and aren’t ready for. And that’s freedom. The Chinese authorities are really mad because they expected that Hong Kong people would buckle, that they could be bought off, bribed, bullied, controlled, and beaten…
…I think he’ll be found guilty. It’s a sham trial because the judges clearly are out to convict him, as they have convicted most national security law defendants. For a while the current Secretary of Security, Chris Tang, was able to boast of a 100 percent conviction rate, which is not really the kind of thing you usually like to boast about, because it only happens in a totalitarian society.
…It’s a reflection of how far Hong Kong has fallen. Instead of celebrating somebody like Jimmy, or the 45 civic leaders … you take your best and your brightest, whether they’re lawyers, journalists, professors or business people, and lock them up and deny society everything that they could create…
