Hong Kong’s Law Society has passed an historic vote of no-confidence in its president over pro-Beijing comments, revealing a determination by the traditionally conservative lawyers to confront perceived threats from China to the legal independence in the freewheeling, global financial hub.
Society president Ambrose Lam (林新強) has angered many of the society’s 8,000 members with his support of controversial statements from Beijing that Hong Kong judges needed to be patriotic, and his open support for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
The vote late on Thursday night surprised even those behind the no-confidence motion, such as lawyer Kevin Yam (任建峰), who said some lawyers faced intense pressure from mainland-linked firms to back Lam and he was not confident of success ahead of the poll.
Photo: Reuters
“I’m very pleased that people have shown that they will stand up and be counted, despite considerable pressure in some cases,” Yam said. “Solicitors, in everything they do, have got to exercise independent professional judgement yet if we are cowed over an internal matter of the Law Society, what sort of message does that send? ... Our political neutrality is everything.”
Lam stayed silent at the impassioned closed-door meeting on Thursday night that drew an estimated 800 lawyers — 10 percent of the society’s membership. He has yet to say whether he will resign over the non-binding vote.
Hong Kong was handed over to China in 1997 with the international promise that its extensive commercial and social freedoms would remain unfettered for 50 years under the “one country, two systems” formula.
That legal system has proved a lightning-rod for wider concerns at increased meddling by Beijing in recent months, including the publication of a white paper by China’s State Council that stated “loving the country” was a basic requirement for city administrators, including judges.
Lam has repeatedly defended the policy document as a “positive document” amid intense debates and street protests by Hong Kong’s influential legal community, at one point telling a radio station of his admiration for the “great” Chinese Communist Party, further inflaming many lawyers in the territory.
Hong Kong’s former top judge, Andrew Li (李國能), expressed “great concern” at the document’s demand that judges be patriotic.
“Under the principle of judicial independence, judges should not be pro or anti anyone or anything,” Li wrote in a rare commentary in the South China Morning Post.
Critics of the white paper say it could be taken to mean that Hong Kong judges will be expected to side with the government in sensitive cases, or even toe the CCP line and that could be difficult for non-Chinese judges.
Four of 11 judges on the Court of Appeal hail from abroad, while a dozen foreign jurists have been invited to sit occasionally on the Court of Final Appeal, Hong Kong’s highest court.
“How do you expect a foreign judge to owe allegiance to China?” asked Martin Lee (李柱銘), Hong Kong’s most senior barrister and a former Democratic Party leader.
With Beijing demanding that only candidates screened by an election committee can run in Hong Kong’s first election for its top leader in 2017, some observers see an independent judiciary as a guarantee of its unique status as a key business center.
THE ‘MONSTER’: The Philippines on Saturday sent a vessel to confront a 12,000-tonne Chinese ship that had entered its exclusive economic zone The Philippines yesterday said it deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats attempting to “alter the existing status quo” of the disputed South China Sea. Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said Chinese patrol ships had this year come as close as 60 nautical miles (111km) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon. “Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to alter the existing status quo,” he said in a statement. He later told reporters that Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area
HOLLYWOOD IN TURMOIL: Mandy Moore, Paris Hilton and Cary Elwes lost properties to the flames, while awards events planned for this week have been delayed Fires burning in and around Los Angeles have claimed the homes of numerous celebrities, including Billy Crystal, Mandy Moore and Paris Hilton, and led to sweeping disruptions of entertainment events, while at least five people have died. Three awards ceremonies planned for this weekend have been postponed. Next week’s Oscar nominations have been delayed, while tens of thousands of city residents had been displaced and were awaiting word on whether their homes survived the flames — some of them the city’s most famous denizens. More than 1,900 structures had been destroyed and the number was expected to increase. More than 130,000 people
A group of Uyghur men who were detained in Thailand more than one decade ago said that the Thai government is preparing to deport them to China, alarming activists and family members who say the men are at risk of abuse and torture if they are sent back. Forty-three Uyghur men held in Bangkok made a public appeal to halt what they called an imminent threat of deportation. “We could be imprisoned and we might even lose our lives,” the letter said. “We urgently appeal to all international organizations and countries concerned with human rights to intervene immediately to save us from
RISING TENSIONS: The nations’ three leaders discussed China’s ‘dangerous and unlawful behavior in the South China Sea,’ and agreed on the importance of continued coordination Japan, the Philippines and the US vowed to further deepen cooperation under a trilateral arrangement in the face of rising tensions in Asia’s waters, the three nations said following a call among their leaders. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and outgoing US President Joe Biden met via videoconference on Monday morning. Marcos’ communications office said the leaders “agreed to enhance and deepen economic, maritime and technology cooperation.” The call followed a first-of-its-kind summit meeting of Marcos, Biden and then-Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida in Washington in April last year that led to a vow to uphold international
RSS