Latest news with #HongKongBarAssociation
South China Morning Post
29-05-2025
- Business
- South China Morning Post
How will hosting the International Organisation for Mediation benefit Hong Kong?
Hong Kong will be hosting the world's first international legal organisation dedicated to mediation, with Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi arriving in the city on Thursday to attend the signing ceremony the next day for the body's inauguration. Experts told the Post that the establishment of the International Organisation for Mediation would bolster Hong Kong's status as a dispute resolution hub, enabling the city to handle disagreements between states, as well as those between investors and governments, amid increasingly fraught geopolitical tensions across the globe. The Post takes a closer look at the organisation's significance for Hong Kong and how mediation differs from other legal methods in resolving conflicts. 1. What is the International Organisation for Mediation? Announced in 2022, the International Organisation for Mediation is designed to create an intergovernmental platform for resolving global disputes. Beijing earlier said the country and 'nearly 20 like-minded' nations had jointly initiated the establishment of the body. Legal experts said the new organisation would address disputes that involved states and investors. Professor Shahla Ali, a dispute resolution specialist and associate dean at the University of Hong Kong's faculty of law, said the body could address three types of disputes: those between states; those between a state and a foreign national; and those between companies based in different jurisdictions. Hong Kong Bar Association chairman Jose-Antonio Maurellet said disputes between states in areas such as trade and intellectual property could require mediation.
South China Morning Post
23-03-2025
- Politics
- South China Morning Post
Hong Kong's security chief attacks Guardian newspaper over Jimmy Lai claim
Hong Kong's security minister has hit out at a British news outlet for 'smearing remarks' made in an article about the top court's rejection of an appeal by former media boss Jimmy Lai Chee-ying over the hiring of a foreign lawyer. Advertisement Secretary for Security Chris Tang Ping-keung on Sunday wrote to The Guardian to defend the Court of Final Appeal's recent rejection of Lai's appeal over an earlier decision to stop his preferred British lawyer, King's Counsel Timothy Owen, from representing him. Headlined 'The obscure Jimmy Lai ruling that exposed the erosion of Hong Kong's rule of law', the article published on March 22 discussed the implications of the court's decision by quoting several legal experts, including former United Kingdom supreme court judge Jonathan Sumption and ex-chairman of the Hong Kong Bar Association Paul Harris. They said the rule of law in Hong Kong was 'profoundly compromised' and the fact the decisions made by the national security committee could not be legally challenged 'effectively gives the committee the powers of a police state'. Lai won approval for Owen to represent him in 2022, and the government lost its appeals to block the move. Advertisement Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu then sought an interpretation of the national security law by the country's top legislative body, which later gave the city's leader and the national security committee the final say on the matter, with the decisions of the latter not open to judicial review.
The Guardian
22-03-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
The obscure Jimmy Lai ruling that exposed the erosion of Hong Kong's rule of law
The dwindling freedom in Hong Kong over the past few years has been described as 'death by a thousand cuts'. Critics have been jailed, elections have been transformed into 'patriots only' affairs, journalists have been harassed and hundreds of thousands of people have left. This week, an obscure legal development has, in the eyes of some legal experts, inflicted another cut on the city's once revered legal system. On 17 March, Hong Kong's Court of Final Appeal (CFA), the city's top bench, rejected an application from Jimmy Lai. The 77-year-old pro-democracy activist is now on trial for alleged national security offences – charges which could see the former media mogul spend the rest of his life in jail. Although the trial is well under way, Lai's legal team have been trying to appeal against the decision to bar his preferred lawyer, Tim Owen KC, from representing him. The details of the saga date back to 2022, when Owen was first approved to represent Lai. The Hong Kong government objected to Owen's admission, but lost multiple appeals to have him blocked. So John Lee, the chief executive, turned to Beijing. In December 2022, the Chinese government issued an interpretation of the national security law, which had been imposed on the city in June 2020 to quell months of pro-democracy protests. The interpretation stated that the courts needed approval from the chief executive to admit foreign lawyers in national security cases. Although Owen had been admitted to represent Lai before the interpretation was issued, Hong Kong's national security committee nonetheless instructed the immigration department to deny him a work permit. 'It's pretty well unheard of for somebody who is entitled to represent a client not to receive a work permit,' says Jonathan Sumption, a former supreme court judge who quit the CFA last year, warning that the rule of law was 'profoundly compromised' in Hong Kong. 'I think it tells us quite a lot about the view of the rule of law taken by the executive'. Sumption said that blocking Owen via a visa refusal was 'a subterfuge' on the part of the government. But the issue at the heart of Lai's appeal was not the visa – but the fact decisions made by the national security committee cannot be legally challenged, a principle that has caused alarm in some legal circles. Paul Harris SC, a former chairperson of the Hong Kong Bar Association, who fled the city in 2022 after being warned by the national security police that they were considering charging him with sedition, said that the principle 'effectively gives the committee the powers of a police state'. While the CFA did not give a reason for rejecting Lai's appeal this week, it did so using a rule that is normally reserved for applications with 'no reasonable grounds' or that are 'frivolous'. 'This is another, among many, blows to the rule of law,' said Michael C Davis, a former law professor at the University of Hong Kong. 'The CFA surely missed an opportunity to reign in what has become excessive resort to national security claims and to better articulate the boundaries, if any, of the committee's immunity from review.' Samuel Townend KC, chairperson of the Bar Council of England and Wales until this year, said that the CFA's refusal to hear the appeal amounted to the court 'washing their hands of any judicial oversight' of the national security committee. Simon NM Young, a law professor at the University of Hong Kong, warned against reading too much into the CFA's decision. He pointed to an earlier ruling which stated that the national security law was clear in its intent to immunise certain decisions from legal challenge. He said that by refusing to grant leave to appeal, the CFA judges may just have decided that Lai's specific claim was simply without merit. 'The question of judicial reviewability of a NSC [national security committee] decision on jurisdictional grounds remains open,' Young said. But for Lai, it is the end of the road on this legal challenge. He will not be able to instruct his chosen lawyer in any future proceedings. With his national security trial expected to run until the autumn, and further appeals expected if he is convicted, there may be many more to come. Hong Kong's judiciary did not respond to a request for comment.
South China Morning Post
21-02-2025
- Politics
- South China Morning Post
Hong Kong's top legal body head urges global unity against planned US sanctions on judges
The Hong Kong Bar Association's new chairman has called for legal associations worldwide to join hands in opposing potential punitive measures from the US against judges and prosecutors, saying any interference in judicial processes will undermine the administration of justice. Senior Counsel Jose-Antonio Maurellet, in his first interview with an English-language media outlet since helming the group representing barristers in Hong Kong, also shared plans to relaunch the body's pro bono scheme later this year and partner with more non-profit groups to help those who could not afford legal services. Maurellet, a Hong Kong-born Eurasian and a corporate law specialist fluent in English, Cantonese and French, succeeded Victor Dawes last month amid uncertainty surrounding United States President Donald Trump's return to the White House and concerns over the potential implications for Hong Kong's legal community. A bipartisan group of American lawmakers recently introduced a bill aimed at sanctioning Hong Kong's judges and prosecutors involved in the cases of activists charged under the national security law. The bill, if passed, would require the US president to decide within six months whether to introduce the sanctions under existing legislation. When asked about the impact of such potential actions, Maurellet said: 'All forms of interference [in legal and judicial work] are actually bad and undermine the administration of justice. So we hope that other legal associations around the world will join us in opposing this.'
South China Morning Post
26-01-2025
- Business
- South China Morning Post
Why Hong Kong need not get defensive about national security
Published: 9:30am, 27 Jan 2025 In the eight-and-a-half years that I led InvestHK, the major factor we always put front and centre in our pitch to potential foreign investors was Hong Kong's legal system: rule of law, use of common law, innocent until proven guilty in criminal cases, respect for private property rights including intellectual property, enforceability of contracts and so on, all administered by an independent judiciary. In our annual opinion surveys asking foreign companies why they had set up here and what they most liked, the legal system came top of the polls year after year, neck and neck with our low and simple taxes. Because the legal system is at the heart of Hong Kong's success as an international financial and business centre, and because Hong Kong's strength is so important to China's development, those who wish China ill turn their big guns against us, in particular against our judiciary . It explains why US lawmakers have pushed to sanction some of judges and run a non-stop barrage of false criticism. It explains why British judges have come under pressure to quit our Court of Final Appeal. At the ceremony last week to mark the opening of the new legal year, Chief Justice Andrew Cheung Kui-nung referred to the 'orchestrated harassment and pressures' some judges faced. But he assured the public that the quality of the judiciary and its independence had not weakened. He regretted the departure of some of the overseas non-permanent judges who sit on the top court. Recruiting replacements would be tough in the geopolitical environment, he said, but even without them, our legal system would remain robust given Hong Kong's large pool of qualified legal professionals steeped in common law. The Hong Kong Bar Association outgoing chairman, Senior Counsel Victor Dawes, has described our judges as 'first class' and urged the public to have confidence in their performance. He also had two pieces of advice for the authorities.
