tim's experiment

Our leaders are awfully upset about Ms Agnes Chow. Ms Chow, if you have been abroad for a few days, was a young and charismatic leader of the protest movement when such things were still allowed.

Lately she has been free but on bail awaiting trial on a national security charge. It emerged last week that during this period she was taken by the Nat Sec police on a one-day tour of Shenzhen, featuring visits to a museum about the glories of modern China and to the headquarters of a mainland megafirm. She then penned a letter of confession and apology and, apparently as a reward for this act of contrition, was given back her passport, which she had handed over to the police under her bail conditions.

She then flew to Canada and promptly announced that she had no intention of coming back. Cue expressions of outrage, accusations of dishonesty and scorn for the rule of law, and promises that she will be “a fugitive for the rest of her life”.

The idea that Hong Kong people will be moved to horror and revulsion if somebody stays abroad to avoid a national security trial is a bit of a stretch.

Anyway the multiple channels condemnation has not entirely dispelled the suspicion that the national security people – as opposed to our political leaders, who have little control over them – may not have been entirely surprised or unhappy with this turn of events. Ms Chow would perhaps be a lesser problem for them as a traumatised exile in Toronto than she would be as a popular martyr in a Hong Kong women’s prison.

The strange thing about the official response was the frequency with which the “rule of law” was mentioned. Because what happened to Ms Chow does seem rather unusual by the standards of places where the rule of law is taken seriously.

I am puzzled by the assurance from government apologist and senior lawyer Ronny Tong that there is nothing to see here because bail conditions are routinely a matter for negotiation between defendants and policemen. I can see there may be room for some give and take when the bail is from the police, not a court, but compulsory tours outside the jurisdiction? Written confessions?

Those of us who fear that we may in future need the information will wonder how this actually works. Do the Nat Sec police appear suddenly at your home and whisk you off to the mainland for a bit of brain washing?

Or does the avuncular station sergeant to whom you have to report every week phrase it as an offer: “How would you feel about a free one-day trip to Shenzhen? Of course we’d have to give you your passport back for a while…”

Then there is the letter of contrition and confession. Is this done on police premises and is your presence there voluntary? Is advice offered: “I don’t think ‘misguided’ quite fits the bill; let us use ‘despicable’”?

What, one wonders, was really the purpose of the whole exercise? Chief Executive John Lee’s version is that the police were trying to “show leniency”. But that hardly seems to explain the compulsory tourism, which included, according to Ms Chow, an awful lot of photography. And what use was to be made of the letter?

Actually I am not too concerned about the tourism aspect, as long as the tourist is allowed to return to Hong Kong at the end of it. But if we are going to boast about our enthusiasm for the rule of law then negotiated confessions, with rewards offered – like access to a passport and, in effect, an escape route – should not be on the menu.

Haggling with the accused over her police bail terms is one thing. Eliciting a signed confession is quite another. While this important piece of authorship was in progress, could Ms Chow consult her lawyer? Was a lawyer present at all? Was she given the usual warning about self-incrimination?

If our leaders wish to preserve what they perceive to be Hong Kong’s international reputation as a haven of the Rule of Law, this requires more than ensuring that overseas business bods can get a fair shake in civil disputes with mainland companies. It also requires diligence in the protection of the rights of citizens accused of criminal offences.

Leaving aside the – shall we say unconventional – features of the national security law, further attention might usefully be bestowed on the matters of pre-trial publicity, the right to legal advice, and speed. Consider Judge Andrew Chan, who recently told 47 defendants, most of whom have already been in custody for three years, that to deliver a verdict at the end of their trial he and his colleagues would need “three to four months”, with “no guarantees” that it would not be longer. This is carrying judicial contempt for the value of other people’s time too far. Try harder.