Hong Kong appoints New Zealand judge to top court
Hong Kong's lawmakers on Wednesday (Jun 4) approved the appointment of William Young, 73, to join five other overseas non-permanent justices from the UK and Australia.
Hong Kong is a common law jurisdiction separate from mainland China and invites overseas judges to hear cases at its Court of Final Appeal.
Their presence has been seen as a bellwether for the rule of law since the former British colony was handed back to China in 1997.
Beijing passed a national security law on Hong Kong in 2020, following huge and often violent pro-democracy protests in the Chinese city the year before.
Since then, several overseas judges have quit the Court of Final Appeal without finishing their terms, while others have not renewed their appointments.
The lineup of overseas judges has gone from 15 at its peak down to five, not including Young.
The newly appointed justice, who retired from his role as a New Zealand Supreme Court judge in April 2022, is expected to start in Hong Kong this month.
Hong Kong leader John Lee accepted a recommendation to appoint Young in May and praised him as "a judge of eminent standing and reputation".
Cases at the top court in Hong Kong are typically heard by a panel of four local judges and a fifth ad hoc member, who may be a foreign judge.
In January, Hong Kong's chief justice said recruiting suitable overseas judges "may be less straightforward than it once was", given geopolitical headwinds.
The government has defended the security law as necessary to restore order after the 2019 protests and said the city remains a well-respected legal hub.
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She lost her husband to cancer at 45 and now leads a widow support group for grieving women and their children
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Finding love and security had always been my mission,' she told CNA Women. In 1997, after eight years of dating, the couple got married at the age of 25. Together, they built the family Tay never had. They had three children, and Tay quit her job after their second child was born to be a homemaker. Peh, who was a Republic of Singapore Air Force pilot, supported the family. 'My husband had always been a good father. Growing up, I didn't have a father, so I wanted my husband to be very present,' said Tay. This dream shattered when Peh died of stomach cancer in 2017 at the age of 45. For Tay, it felt like 'the whole world collapsed'. Faced with the kind of grief that was hard to articulate, the young widow found solace in other bereaved widows. In 2017, she joined Wicare Support Group, a charity for widows and their children,and began volunteering as a befriender and board member shortly after. In May this year, she was appointed the chairperson of the support group. GRIEF BEGINS BEFORE DEATH 'Grief does not start after a person passes on. It starts when he is not able to hold a conversation with you, hold your hands, sleep in the same bed,' Tay reflected. Peh was first diagnosed with early-stage stomach cancer in 2010 at the age of 38, but recovered after surgery and chemotherapy. For four years, he was cancer-free. But in the fifth year, just before a long-anticipated family trip to Italy, the cancer returned. This time it was terminal. In 2015, Peh was diagnosed with Stage 4 stomach cancer. The doctor said the father-of-three had up to a year to live. 'We cancelled our trip. All our plans were shattered,' Tay said. For a while, Peh swung into depression. 'He knew my dream was to be with the kids and give them a really good childhood. He also knew I'd always wanted a complete family. Knowing he could not provide for us or be there for us anymore was really tough for him,' she added. But Peh picked himself up and decided to spend his remaining time well. He even proposed to Tay again, and the couple held an intimate renewal of vows ceremony in 2015 on Christmas Day. 'I was very, very happy,' reminisced Tay. Peh outlasted his doctor's forecast and survived for two years and three months. Over this period, he underwent radiotherapy, and several operations where he removed parts of his stomach, intestine and pancreas. However, during the last nine months of his life, his digestive system shut down and he had to be fed intravenously. This did not satiate his hunger, and he was always hungry. 'My children and I dared not eat in front of him, and hid ourselves to eat. We made sure to rinse our mouth before going near him,' Tay said. Her husband was hospitalised during this period and she stayed in the hospital with him the entire time; her children visited daily. But towards the last two weeks of his life, Peh could not even be fed intravenously – his failing organs could no longer process the nutrients. By that time, Tay had already watched her husband wither from a robust 70-plus kg to 30-plus kg. Helpless, the family brought him home where he died eight days later, on Mar 31, 2017. Their children were eight, 16 and 18. A FAMILY SHATTERED 'Sometimes, people compare the experience of widowhood to people who are not married, or those who get divorced and become a single parent. 'But there is a bit of difference. Widowhood is a loving relationship that is forced to stop. Nobody wanted it, no one is at fault, but you just have no choice but to accept it,' said Tay. 'The longing for that person lingers,' she added. 'Now, every morning when I wake up, he's not there. Sometimes, I battle with acceptance. Is it really true that he's gone?' Because Peh had been the sole breadwinner, Tay sold the family condominium and moved into a Housing Development Board flat to shore up the family finances. With the proceeds and Peh's savings, the family had enough to survive. But a heavy silence fell over their home. 'As a caregiver, you're so busy day in, day out. But after he passed on, time stood still,' she said. Sometimes, Tay would cry herself to sleep. In fact, on Tay's first birthday after her husband's death, she deliberately told her kids to return home late and give her alone time. 'I was so ready to cry big-time. But I couldn't squeeze a tear out of my eyes that day. Instead, I spent the time reflecting on our journey and good memories. And that's when I felt like, maybe this should be the way I start my life again,' she said. Nine months after Peh's death, two friends of Tay's from church invited her for a Wicare workshop. During the session, she heard other widows echo her greatest fear – dying and leaving her children orphaned. She also learnt to her surprise that the fatherless children in the group had different fears – they resented how people looked at them differently and wanted to be seen as normal. Moved by the open sharing, Tay began to attend Wicare's counselling and group therapy programmes more frequently. 'This is a place where you can talk about death openly. It's not easy to talk about (such things elsewhere) because people don't know how to talk to you, which lines they cannot cross,' she said. LEADING OTHERS THROUGH GRIEF A few months after attending Wicare sessions, Tay volunteered as a befriender, offering a listening ear to newly bereaved widow. She has since befriendered several widows, walking the journey with them. 'When you put a widow beside another widow, even though you don't say anything, tears can just flow. You know you have gone through a similar journey,' she said. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Wicare (@ A year later, in 2019, Tay was invited to join the Wicare board. She and a few other board members set up a befriending framework and recruited befrienders. She also enhanced its Children Grief Support Programme, which equips children whose fathers have died to process their grief through counselling, group therapy, and psychosocial therapies like ceramic and puppetry workshops. This is an initiative under WiShine, a programme that supports widows and their children during their healing journey, and is funded by the Community Chest and SGSHARE, Community Chest's donation platform. Tay brought the spirit of volunteerism into her family as well. Since 2020, she has involved her children, who are now 17, 25 and 26, in Wicare activities and events where they care for and interact with younger children through games, arts and craft, and conversation. Because of her active volunteerism, Tay was appointed chairperson of Wicare in May. 'I used to be a very simple person. All I needed to do was to be a good mum to my kids. But after the loss, I see the world in a very different perspective. I now see that there are so many people who are going through losses. I also draw courage from every story I hear. 'Along the way, I am really glad to have come to this space where I can rediscover myself and do things that I would previously never do,' she said. But no matter how many years have passed and how much she has changed, Tay still misses her husband dearly and tears when she thinks of their happy times. What hurts, she said, is knowing that as her children grow up, she will walk the rest of the road without the man who had shared his life and built their family with her. In those moments, she is struck by a deep sense of loneliness, she said.
CNA
3 hours ago
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Commentary: AI can boost Singapore's productivity, but let's not lose the point of work
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What matters is whether we see the tool merely as an instrument of utility or as an extension of our creativity and judgment. AI is no different. Too often, people want to use it as a crutch to 'do everything for them'. But AI makes mistakes, just like humans. And yet we are prone to defer our own judgments to computer systems – even in trivial matters. As an example, I once tried to order bubble tea without ice. The cashier refused. Not because it was hard to do, but because 'the system' wouldn't allow it. All she had to do was not put ice into the cup. Instead, she refused because 'the system' (i.e. the cash register) would not allow her to key in the order for an iceless drink. This might seem trivial (and bizarre), but it tells us how easily we humans are willing to surrender our agency to a machine. WHAT IS AGENCY? Agency, at its core, is the psychological conviction that we have the freedom and the ability to shape our environment. Those with a weakened sense of agency often feel they are not in a position to change anything, or that nothing can be changed, and thus resign themselves to the status quo. The philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel described work as a dialogue between the human mind and the world. A sculptor imprints ideas from her mind onto the clay by working with it, by shaping it with her hands. And by working with the clay – pressing, pulling, reshaping – the clay shapes her mind by revealing more about its properties and what she can and cannot do with it. It is through work that we gain a clear understanding of what we can and cannot do. It equips us with the necessary practical knowledge to effectively anticipate challenges, solve problems and craft strong strategies. Most importantly, it allows us to recognise and seize opportunities for innovation. In essence, work fosters mastery, builds confidence, and ultimately grants us freedom – the very foundation of human agency. The challenge, then, is not to let AI sever this dialogue. To use AI meaningfully to enhance our productivity, we must continue to stay 'in the loop' – to be engaged, questioning and reflective. This means being engaged in the things we are responsible for by resisting the temptation of simply accepting AI-generated answers uncritically. It requires having the curiosity to probe, the responsibility to stay engaged and understand what is really happening on the ground, and the courage to challenge the AI's answers when our instincts say otherwise. TECHNOLOGY SHOULD MAKE US BETTER, NOT JUST FASTER At the end of the day, AI is made in our image and likeness – it is fallible, limited and prone to error. It becomes 'superior' only when we surrender our agency to it. Without this fundamental mindset shift, we risk using AI to detach from our work, and to empty out meaning and purpose in what we do. As long as we remain engaged – actively steering, questioning and shaping what we do alongside AI – then we can be assured that these tools will amplify our human potential and creativity, rather than diminish it. This is very much how an artist is able to create beautiful works of art with a mere pencil.
CNA
3 hours ago
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Commentary: Nvidia's icy reception in China is buying time for Huawei
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