tim's experiment

It is a sad fact of court life, in my experience, that witnesses are often not entirely truthful.

The defendant, if he gives evidence, wishes to establish his innocence. Prosecution witnesses, for more subtle reasons, may be eager to establish her guilt. So it goes.

The only help the court has in distinguishing the truth from the other stuff, unless there is video evidence (which is always interesting) is the tradition that any witness can be questioned by both sides.

That means that after each witness has been taken through the expected stuff by the side calling him, the lawyer for the other lot can ask questions designed to highlight inaccuracies or inconsistencies. This rarely leads to the complete collapse of a case, but is still an important safeguard.

However it seems that in at least one Hong Kong court this part of the procedure is now regarded merely as a time-wasting piece of grit in the wheels of justice.

This brings us to the West Kowloon Magistracy, where eight defendants accused of rioting appeared before District Judge Kathie Cheung. They were all convicted.

Passing sentence, Judge Cheung said that the sentencing of rioting charges should be based on the overall incident rather than anything the defendants personally had been proven to have done. This seems rather strange to me, but the law often seems strange to lay people so we shall let that pass.

Ms Cheung set five years as the starting point, which I presume is the established tariff for rioting cases, and gave seven of the defendants three months off for youth and clean records. Two of them, however, were given a further two months off because “they did not challenge the prosecution’s witnesses and saved the court’s time”.

And at this point it seems to me Ms Cheung, who spent virtually the whole of her pre-judicial legal career as a government lawyer, displayed an erroneous idea of what court proceedings are for.

The purpose of the proceedings is not to consign the defendants to long periods behind bars as expeditiously as possible. The importance of cross-examination – by either side – is that it assists the court in the pursuit of truth and justice, which may in some cases require an acquittal. The right to confront your accuser, in particular, is an important right. It is difficult to distinguish a discount for not exercising it from a penalty for exercising it.

It is generally very easy to get a lawyer to explain the importance of cross-examination; you just have to criticise the part of rape trials in which defence counsel tries to establish that the victim is a loose woman who probably enjoyed it.

Your legal eagle will then explain, quite rightly, that the defendant has a lot at stake in the proceedings. If convicted he will go to jail for a long time. It is important that his version of the story should be placed before the court and the version which is going to put him behind bars is vigorously tested.

This, I suppose, is also true of rioting, so however upsetting it may be for police witnesses to have their veracity questioned, the accused person or his lawyer has a right to try.

It will no doubt be argued in defence of Ms Cheung that defendants routinely get a discount for pleading guilty. But this concession – which is notoriously open to abuse – is based on the rather optimistic notion that if the person is guilty he would have been convicted anyway.

This is hardly the same thing as saying that the prosecution’s witnesses were so transparently honest that questioning them was a waste of the court’s time. Indeed those defendants who managed to establish that there was no evidence linking them personally to disorderly or violent acts were no doubt under the impression that this was the sort of thing the judge ought to find interesting.

I cannot resist the thought that the legal system seems to place a much higher value on its own time than on other peoples’, as those unfortunate defendants in their third year of pre-trial custody have found.

Reactions to the end of the Jimmy Lai fraud case were mostly predictable but eventually, in one case, surprisingly honest.

Mr Lai had earlier been convicted of fraud because a small part of the factory building he had leased was, in violation of the lease conditions, used as the office of the company which provided secretarial services to the firms in his Apple Daily group.

This was in itself a somewhat surprising event. Factory spaces in Hong Kong are routinely used for other purposes; in Fotan where I live there are factory spaces being used for shops, offices, restaurants, artists’ studios and in a few cases homes. This is generally regarded as a private matter between the landlord and his tenant.

Little was made of this oddity in local media because of the curious state of the law on contempt of court these days. You can imply that someone is guilty with impunity and the pro-government outlets do it all the time. Implying innocence is more dangerous so most of us give it a miss.

The passing of sentence ends the sub judice period so we can all now – at least in theory – say what we like.

Mr Lai’s legal team complained that the charges were “spurious” and part of a campaign of “lawfare” targetting Mr Lai for his leading role in protests and campaigns for democracy.

A local blogger pointed out that shorter sentences had recently been imposed on miscreants convicted of attempted murder in one case, and child abuse in another.

The US State Department said the sentence – five years and nine months – was “immoderate and grossly unjust”, and called for the authorities to respect freedom of expression in Hong Kong.

To the usual complaints, the usual reply. A Hong Kong government spokesman dubbed the State Department’s complaint “absurd”, and said it “disregarded the facts”. It was a “malicious slander on Hong Kong’s judicial system”

The spokesperson went on to say that Mr Lai had exercised his defence rights, and the court had passed sentence independently, based on facts and evidence after an open trial. Reasons for the sentence were contained in the publicly available judgement. He concluded that “a fraud case should not be tied with political considerations”.

So far so normal. An alert reporter could have written the whole controversy in advance. But the Office of the Commissioner of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Hong Kong had apparently not been in the loop when the “line to take” was decided.

A spokesman said that residents’ rights were protected by the rule of law, but “such rights are not a ‘free pass’ to criminal acts, which include opposing China and disrupting the city.”

This seems to confirm what many of us already suspected. Mr Lai was not, at least in this case, charged with anything like opposing China or disrupting the city. But in the Foreign Ministry’s view, apparently, anyone who is suspected of such a thing forfeits all rights, including the right not to be charged with spurious offences and condemned to disproportionate sentences upon conviction.

So it was political after all? What a malicious slander of Hong Kong’s judicial system!

Just when you thought Hong Kong was getting too quiet, Secretary for Security Chris Tang is offering us a “colour revolution”.

In case you missed it, this began last week at three local universities, where students – mostly from the mainland — demonstrated in support of protests which were occurring in many cities in China, mainly about stringent Covid restrictions and censorship.

The number of students involved seems to have been quite small. Seven people in a protest at Hong Kong U, followed by two people putting up posters, only one of whom was still there when police arrived. Posters also appeared at HKBU, and it seems there was a small gathering at Chinese U.

This doesn’t sound much: a small overflow from mainland student disturbances, no local implications, no violence, no personal attacks. Could this be a routine exercise of the freedoms which we are still said to enjoy?

Not according to Mr Tang, who was in full bloodhound mode. The events were “highly organised” on anti-China media platforms. They endangered national security. Is national security so fragile?

Some of the slogans, said Mr Tang, might violate the national security law because they involved words such as “revolution”, “autocracy” and “urging the leader to step down.” He also thought that “Some people who actively participated in the 2019 unrest were involved. This is not a coincidence.”

Not a coincidence, but also very difficult to believe. Three quarters of the people who were students in 2019 should have graduated by now, apart from those in prison. Mainland students were not conspicuously supportive in 2019 and in any case many of them are graduates who are only here for a year or two.

Still, this is a factual matter which sensible people can discuss. Not content with this sort of material, though, Mr Tang swept on to prophecy: “We’ve noticed signs of a colour revolution. Next they’ll make up false news, protest manuals and theme songs to smear the central government before taking to the street.”

This is totally unwarranted and imaginative. It is as if your local vicar, finding that some people had removed money from the collection plate instead of putting it in, predicted that the miscreants would go on to steal the lead off the church roof, hold Satanic ceremonies in the side chapel and do unspeakable things to the choirboys.

Some reassurance is clearly needed, along the lines of “Grandma, just because there is a sparrow on the lawn does not mean that buzzards will soon swoop on your cat and ostriches will pillage the vegetable plot.”

It is a fundamental fact of life that every oak tree started with an acorn, but very few acorns manage actually to turn into oak trees. Similarly even if every revolution (if I may use that dangerous word) starts with student protests it does not follow that every student protest leads to a revolution.

It is difficult to see why Mr Tang feels compelled to channel his inner Nostradamus in public. Is he suffering from some variation on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (Post Disorder Traumatic Stress, perhaps) or just dumb?

While it is nice to see senior officials offering exciting material for local news media, it seems that Mr Tang is neglecting an important part of his job. As he said in a speech last August, “The freedom of speech in Hong Kong is protected by the Basic Law and National Security Law. It is allowed to criticize the government and express opinions urging the government to make development, citizens who make these actions enjoy the legal defence.”

It is nice to know that the freedom of speech is protected by the Basic Law and the National Security Law. It would be nicer if it was also protected by him. Covid prevention and censorship are legitimate topics for public discussion in a society enjoying freedom of speech. Such discussion should be possible without senior officials leaping into action with complaints about hypothetical future behaviour and predictions that some slogans “may violate the national security law”.

The national security law already appears very vague and constant warnings of possible violations are not improving its reputation. What is wrong with “urging the leader to step down”? Could one, without committing an offence, urge Mr Tang to step down?

The people I feel sorry for, reading this morning’s newspapers, are those Law Society worthies who recently returned from a trip abroad in which they reassured overseas colleagues that the rule of law was alive and well in Hong Kong.

Scarcely had the poor legal lambs returned than the Hong Kong government produced a new demonstration of what the rule of law now means. The law applies to you and me, but not to the government. Because if they lose in the courts they will simply change the law.

I am afraid that whatever intricate legal verbiage is offered in defence of the decision to ask the Beijing authorities to overrule the judicial decision to allow Brit barrister Tim Owen to represent Jimmy Lai in his upcoming trial, the view of the matter outside Hong Kong is likely to be critical.

One could hope that the rather similar decision to hastily plug the “loophole” revealed by a judicial review of the Health Secretary’s power to invalidate vaccination certificates might be overlooked outside Hong Kong. After all in most of the world COVID is an old story.

Mr Lai is another matter. When people are considering a territory’s claims to be an international city offering the full range of human rights and freedoms the jailing of the owner of a pro-democracy newspaper attracts attention.

You have to wonder why this particular row was considered worth the reputational risk. After all whoever represents Mr Lai it is difficult to envisage him emerging alive from prison, in the absence of an upheaval so drastic that even imagining it is probably a national security offence.

The decision of the Court of Final Appeal does not decide the legal question which seems to be bothering our leaders, because the judges refused to entertain the latest thoughts on the matter from the Department of Justice on the (entirely correct) grounds that they could only consider arguments which had been raised in the courts below. This means that in a future case the CFA can reconsider the whole matter in the light of the DoJ’s belated brainwave.

You have to wonder if senior officials have developed a suspicion that judges are getting a little resistant to the DoJ’s “leave no stone unthrown” approach to people the government disapproves of, and need a reminder that their decisions are not final.

Chief Executive John Lee said that there was “no way” of ensuring that overseas lawyers would observe the “duty of confidentiality” in the national security law. But this hardly seems relevant to Mr Lai’s case, which will presumably rely heavily on the contents of his newspapers, not really a secret.

Mr Lee went on to say that there was no way of ensuring an overseas counsel would not have a conflict of interest, and there was also no way to ensure that he has not been “coerced, compromised or in any way controlled by foreign governments, associations or persons.”

But this is surely taking paranoia – or patriotism – to absurd lengths. It is a characteristic of Hong Kong trials that they are held in public. Judges will insist that speeches are relevant. The duty of defence counsel is to do his best for his client. Where is there an interest for wicked foreigners here?

And after all foreign lawyers are not the only ones who may have a conflict of interest. The Department of Justice was quite happy to employ one on to argue on its own behalf. And local lawyers have other pressures to worry about. Cynical observers may attribute to the Hong Kong government a desire to ensure that defendants accused of national security offences are represented only by local lawyers who can be surreptitiously punished for excessive zeal.

Well if we are going to have announcements of this kind one would hope the organisers would come up with some more persuasive supporters. Mr Lee was backed up by a Wechat post from the State Council’s Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, a source which cuts little ice in Hong Kong and less overseas.

This pushed the curious line that the decision to admit Mr Owen violated the bit in the National Security law which obliges “the executive, legislative and judicial authorities to prevent, stop and punish activities which endanger national security.”

Indeed. But surely this is not a definition of a new offence or a new duty for judges. The role of the judiciary in protecting national security is to enforce the national security law and punish those who infringe it. Nobody has been charged with an infringement.

The anonymous Wechatter went on to say that the CFA’s decision was “against the purpose of legislation and logic in legal contexts”, which perhaps sounds better in Mandarin than in English, and had aroused strong discontentment among people who “love the country and love Hong Kong” and “those with righteousness in the legal sector”.

Then we had a supportive spokesman from the Liaison Office, who also claimed to be channeling local discontent among righteous and legal circles. The decision, he said, “not only has created convenience for foreign forces intervention but also damaged the professionalism of local lawyers and the rule of law in Hong Kong.”

I do not remember similar concerns about professionalism and the rule of law when the DoJ was trying to import a prosecutor.

Anyway if I were Mr Lee I would try to avoid having controversial announcements from him flying in formation with supportive offerings from official mainland organs. Or we might start wondering who is the organ grinder here and who is the monkey.

There is a curious down the rabbit hole, through the looking glass, Alice in Wonderland quality to Hong Kong these days. Maybe it is caused, or helped, by the massive purge of independent sources of information that has happened over the last two years. Whatever the reason, welcome to the new surrealism.

Let us start with reports of an overseas expedition to the US, UK and Singapore by four leading members of the Law Society. President Chan Chak-min said it was not their role to “tell a good Hong Kong story” (sorry, Mr Lee) but they had been dispelling misconceptions such as “all local judges are appointed by Beijing”, and that “there is no judicial independence, fair trials or free speech” in Hong Kong.

Reading this (it’s an RTHK story) you have to wonder which foreign lawyers they were talking to. I do not know anyone who supposes that “all local judges are appointed by Beijing”. There are substantial concerns about the increased influence the government exerts on judicial appointments and promotions, and equally substantial concerns about the increased influence which Beijing exerts on the government. But Beijing appointing all local judges? Fiction.

There is a similar lack of nuance to the other three “misconceptions”. Nobody believes that judicial independence has entirely expired, though it is certainly looking a bit under the weather. Some trials are fairer than others but nobody believes that there are “no fair trials”. Free speech is not an on-off switch, an either you’ve got it or you haven’t thing like pregnancy or being able to ride a bike. There are degrees of freedom and Hong Kong has moved the dial in the wrong direction quite a lot.

President Chan added a priceless observation about himself: “’I really can’t see under the current environment, we are not allowed to criticise the government. We criticise the government all the time,’ he added.”

Come off it Mr Chan. One thing we have not seen in the past few months is a stream of criticism of the government, or indeed anything else, from the Law Society. This may have something to do with the fact that the last set of elections to the society’s council were a triumph for the “professionalism” slate, warmly endorsed by Beijing’s Liaison Office in Hong Kong.

This in turn may have had something to do with threats by the then Chief Executive that if the Law Society elected a more critical council it might lose its authority over the profession. Talk of this “reform” subsided after the election had produced the desired result.

We cannot say, of course, what happens in private. But if the Law Society is providing a stream of public-spirited criticism they are doing it in a surreptitious way which does not help to dispel suspicions about freedom of speech.

Still on freedom of speech we have an astonishing article by Junius Ho and a co-author, about this very topic. Much of this is a survey of the legal and philosophical arguments for freedom of speech which could usefully be shared with one’s students, and indeed with the Secretary for Security.

What, though, is the outrage which has spurred Mr Ho into the lists on behalf of a threatened freedom. Is it one of the slaughtered media outlets or jailed journalists he is worried about, the use of sedition charges, the censorship of libraries? No. The victim, in Mr Ho’s eyes, is himself.

This is weird. Mr Ho is a legislative councillor whose words of wisdom are often reported lavishly by the media. He also has a regular gig on the China Daily op ed page. He is not on the mysterious but influential list of non-people who must not be interviewed by government-friendly media.

Mr Ho’s beef is with a retired banker, Mark Peaker, who wrote a letter to the SCMPost in 2021. This contained a “dictatorial remark” in which “the torch of freedom of expression is being threatened by the brutal attempts of Peaker to forcibly bend the public discourse toward his LGBTQ-based viewpoints.”

Goodness, the torch of freedom of expression in danger! What did Mr Peaker say?

“In a letter dated June 11, 2021, he criticized Junius Ho Kwan-yiu, one of the co-authors of this article, for referring to the Gay Games as disgraceful. He further called on Ho to shut up and apologize.”

I have not personally participated in discussions of the Gay Games, for which I do not qualify, but I can see why people might be offended by a writer who characterised them as “disgraceful”. Whatever you think about this, a response on a newspaper letters page which urges Mr Ho to shut up and/or apologise is neither brutal nor forcible. Indeed since 2021 Mr Ho has been voluble on a variety of topics. And he has not apologised. No force, no brutality. Jimmy Lai should be so lucky.

Mr Ho’s quarrel with the Gay Games, it turns out further down the article, is the fear that they will be used to “promote same-sex marriage as a special right in Hong Kong.” This is turn takes on a national security tinge: “Spiritual pollution knows no frontiers. To safeguard cultural security on the Chinese mainland, we should guard against the spread of corrosive cultures across the boundaries.”

Goodness, the Chinese mainland is so sensitive! Which brings us to the great Anthem Bandwagon, which agitated so many defenders of cultural security last week.

Rugby Sevens started life as a little end-of-season thing which rugby clubs did for the entertainment of their own members, in much the same spirit as rowing clubs mark the end of the season by having short races in which the crews are picked by lot. No practice, just a fun thing.

This sprouted a national version which was held at Twickenham every year, and in turn led to the Hong Kong Sevens, a carnival of booze and ball games which compensated the city’s foreign inhabitants for the fact that we don’t have real internationals here because our team is not good enough.

After years of success in Hong Kong, Sevens became a thing in itself, sprouting a sort of international circus which circulates the globe, stopping at other places and coming here (public health restrictions permitting) as one stop on the circuit.

Most of the teams are “national”, which provides the opportunity for a good deal of flag-waving and anthem playing. Sevens matches are quite short so there is plenty of time to fill.

And so to South Korea where, at the latest iteration, the Hong Kong team was serenaded with the protest anthem Glory to Hong Kong, instead of the Chinese national anthem, the March of the Volunteers. This seems to have been the result of a simple error. As Hong Kong does not have an anthem of its own, if you Google “Hong Kong anthem” you do in fact get Glory to Hong Kong.

This sort of error happens occasionally. But…

Cue outrage. The Hong Kong Rugby Union had “extreme dissatisfaction”, the Hong Kong government said it “strongly deplores and opposes the playing of the song”, Chief Executive John Lee said it was “unacceptable”.

The Secretary for Culture, Sports and Tourism said the song was “closely associated with the riots that promoted Hong Kong independence” which is untrue both in respect of the song and the riots. Junius Ho, unsilenced by his brutal experience on the SCMPost letters page, opined that the only solution was to dissolve the Hong Kong team. Nobody told him to shut up.

An FTU lawmaker called on the government to unleash the national security police (in South Korea?) and Ronny Tong said omnisciently that the playing of the song was “definitely not unintentional”. Regina Ip thought the sinner involved should be charged with a criminal offence and could then be extradited to Hong Kong. Generally countries will not extradite people for offences commited in their own country which are not offences there. Extradition proceedings would also raise the question whether the person concerned could get a fair trial in Hong Kong.

An alternative offered by the secretary general of the Sports Federation and Olympic Committee of Hong Kong was that South Korea should be punished by being banned from holding rugby matches, or if possible any international sporting events, “for a while so they can reflect on their actions”.

Meanwhile a queue of increasingly obscure legislators were dipping their bread: Steven Ho discerned an “insult to the nation” and urged to government to “strengthen its efforts on national security matters”, while Tommy Cheung said it was a national security threat “in the flesh”. Lilian Ho called for more resistance to “foreign influences” and claimed, a surprise, that there were still “books about Hong Kong independence” in Hong Kong public libraries.

It seems to me that it would be better for everyone concerned to make less of a fuss about this. The idea of a Hong Kong “national” team is looking increasingly tricky as we snuggle into the bosom of the motherland. The older ball games, like rugby, will not complain because they have accommodated “national” teams from Wales and Scotland for years. Other sports may wonder why, if Hong Kong’s anthem is the March of the Volunteers, China should in effect be allowed two entries to everyone else’s one.

Anyway Glory to Hong Kong in the instrumental version is not a song, it is a tune. A set of pro-popo words for it was written but did not catch on. Tunes are adaptable. Haydn’s “Austrian hymn” for Catholics famously became the Methodist hymn Glorious Things of Thee are Spoken, and the German national anthem. The original words for that last purpose – Deutschland Deutschland Uber Alles – have now been replaced with a less bombastic set.

Another conclusion we might draw from the latest calamity is that Hong Kong could usefully have its own anthem, at least for sporting purposes. Was there a tune to “Below Lion Rock”?

Local lawyers and judges have for many years enjoyed the opportunity to tell us all how lucky we are to have them, at the ceremonial opening of the Legal Year. This is always marked by assurances from sundry legal bigwigs that the rule of law is vital to our stability and prosperity, alive and well, etc.

In the last three years we have also had a Legal Week, held in November, when much the same people can sing much the same song. Cue speech from the Chief Justice which you can read here.

The one point I agree with (he said it twice) was that “the rule of law is not static”. Hear hear. The description of it is wonderful, but seems to have little connection with what happens in local justice factories.

Consider the case of Ms Paula Leung, who appeared last week in a Kwun Tong magistrates’ court, acting Principal Magistrate Amy Chan as the woman with the whistle, charged with insulting the national anthem.

Ms Leung was in a shopping mall in July last year (only 16 months ago; this is the new normal) where a large number of people were watching the Olympics, and enjoying the success of Hong Kong’s gold medal winner. After the medal ceremony the PRC national anthem was played.

At this point Ms Leung waved a copy of the old colonial flag and then draped it over her head. There was booing, about which accounts differ. The more patriotic media suggested that the booing was directed at the colonial flag; others suggested it was directed at the national anthem.

Some of those present called the police, but by the time they arrived it was of course impossible to establish who had booed or why. Ms Leung, however, had been asked to identify herself by mall staff, and instead of recommending the pleasures of self-taxidermy had complied. So in due course she was arrested and charged with insulting the national anthem.

Readers of a legal disposition may have some doubts at this point about whether an entirely silent symbolic act in front of a giant television really meets the requirements of this offence, but Ms Leung prudently pleaded guilty so we shall not explore that.

However Ms Chan was not left to consider this point without assistance. The Standard’s man in the press box wrote:

According to an expert report from Lingnan University history professor Lau Chi-pang, the colonial-era flag is a connection between Hong Kong and the United Kingdom and had not been used since the handover in 1997. Waving the flag is an insult to the national anthem, Lau said in the report presented at the hearing.

Standard Nov 11

And I am now going to protest again at the sloppy legal thinking which allows non-experts to supply “expert reports”.

To start with, history is a wonderful subject to study but it simply does not produce the hard nuggets of scientifically certifiable fact which you get from a forensic pathologist, or the lab which analyses your suspicious white powder. Historians should not be giving “expert evidence” about anything.

If you were looking for an expert historian, moreover, you would not choose Professor Lau. He is not currently a professional historian at all, being laudably engaged in the administration of Ling Nan University where he is, according to the university’s web site,

• Associate Vice President (Academic Affairs and External Relations), Lingnan University
  Professor, Department of History, Lingnan University
  Co-ordinator, HK & South China Historical Research Programme, Lingnan University
  Director, Jockey Club Hong Kong History Learning Programme, Lingnan University
  Director, Hong Kong Local Records Office

The History Professor title is now aooarently a bit of an ornament. Indeed the university also notes other hobbies:

• He had served the Tuen Mun District Council, Heung Yee Kuk, Antiquities Advisory Board, Advisory Committee on Revitalisation of Historic Buildings, Town Planning Board, History Museum Advisory Panel, Lord Wilson Heritage Trust. He is currently a member of the Legislative Council, Chairman of the Advisory Committee on Built Heritage Conservation and member of Advisory Council on the Environment.

Clearly Professor Lau is regarded as a safe pair of buttocks by the government’s seat-filling machinery, but what does he know about colonial flags?

Professor Lau’s academic interests include the intellectual history of the Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, Hong Kong history, as well as the study of Chinese Local Records. He has focused on the research and teaching of local history in recent 20 years, publishing more than 20 books on a wide range of topics such as: the development of Tuen Mun, the New Territories and other places; oral history records of residents from So Uk Estate and Chung Ying Street, local artists from 1960 to 1975, Shandong policemen in the last century, Hong Kong people during Japanese Occupation, etc.; as well as the history of the bar-bending industry, Ta Teh Institute, Hong Kong International Airport, Tung Wah Group of Hospitals and so on.

LU website

I fear that Prof Lau’s supervisor, when he had one, would have worried that he was spreading himself rather thin. Some historians would regard the intellectual history of the “Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties”, which span nearly 1,000 years, as enough to keep a man busy. Or might say the same thing about the history of Tuen Mun.

The result is a shortage of outputs. When I was in the academic business we were encouraged to produce at least one refereed journal article a year. Prof Lau has six to his name, the last one appearing in 2014. Since then he has produced two refereed book chapters, both on the Hong Kong maritime industry. Well I suppose ships have flags.

Regular consumers will recall that I was not happy with Prof Lau’s appearance in the case of Tong Ying-kit, the motorcyclist with banner who was accused in Hong Kong’s first national security law case. But at least on that occasion Prof Lau had been asked to research and pronounce on a specific point: the meaning of “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times”.

This seemed to me an elusive concept – phrases rarely have exact and indisputable meanings – but they are least more subject to learned interpretation than the act of waving a flag. And if it were to be interpreted, one might have more confidence in the result if it came from someone without another of Prof Lau’s side hustles: he is an Executive Member of the Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macao Studies, a well-known venue for professorial pro-Party pompom-waving.

We now come to Ms Chan’s contribution to the proceedings which, in the light of the guilty plea, was limited to passing sentence.

Ms Chan thought the accused could have brought about a “dangerous situation” by waving the flag. The thought behind this, I suppose, is that rival members of the yellow and blue camps might have come to blows over it.

This is not very plausible, but even if it were likely the general rule in these matters is that non-violent expressions of opinion should be protected, and violent reactions to them suppressed, not the other way round.

Ms Chan went on to show a worrying tendency to imitate one of the worst features of recent political cases: a mysterious compulsion to dismiss at length and in detail anything offered by way of mitigation.

Ms Leung, according to her lawyer, has autism and a low IQ. She attended a school for children with special needs and left it after Form 3. She had worked as a security guard for ten years but had recently been unemployed. Not an easy life, you might think.

But (Standard again) “Chan said she would not impose a lenient sentence since Leung did not suffer from illness, but had a different mental and physical condition compared to other people.”

And at this point I don’t know whether to laugh or scream. After all if you are run over by a truck and lose both legs you are not ill, but have a different physical condition. Most people would still regard this as a decent claim to leniency. A chronic problem is still a problem, and mental problems can be just as disruptive as physical ones.

It is true that autism covers a wide range. Some “high-functioning” autistics have compensating advantages, and indeed may not discover that they are autistic until adulthood, like neurologist and financial guru Michael Burry, one of the heroes of “The Big Short”, or like the owner of this interesting Youtube channel.

The advantages may include a flying start in the academic obstacle race: the other day I read that 80 per cent of early readers are autistic, a disconcerting thought for anyone who was an early reader before autism was discovered. Like me.

However, lucky or less unlucky though some autistic people may be, the fact that Ms Leung needed to attend a school for children with special needs and was diagnosed as having a low IQ suggests that she is at the unlucky end of the autism spectrum and describing her condition as “different” doesn’t do justice to her situation.

Ms Chan’s thoughts on this topic may have been more nuanced than the (legitimately) compressed version offered to newspaper readers. Still, she would do well to try harder to avoid giving the impression that she is an arrogant berk prone to jumping to conclusions about matters on which she is ill-informed.

The Hong Kong government has done a good job so far of keeping Jimmy Lai in prison for one reason or another. No doubt it will continue to discharge this important function. This does, though, require some logical and legal gymnastics.

Remember the row about British judges making guest appearances on the Court of Final Appeal? This arrangement was, in the official view, a gratifying endorsement of the Hong Kong legal system. Nobody was bothered by the undoubted fact that the CFA will from time to time have to rule on cases involving the National Security Law, or that the overseas judges did not speak Cantonese. Nor indeed that they were likely to rule on laws which they had not previously encountered in their various home jurisdictions.

They were a great asset; the withdrawal of those who withdrew was lamented, and the announcement that others would not withdraw was hailed as an endorsement of our legal system.

Yet the question of local knowledge and language skills were the things which bothered the DoJ when Mr Lai wished to be represented by a British KC (a KC is a QC whose Queen has died and been replaced by her son) Tim Owen.

If you want to employ an imported barrister you have to get the permission of a High Court judge. Such applications are routinely opposed by the local Bar Association on the grounds that suitably qualified locals are available.

Actually I suspect the suitably qualified locals were rather pleased that the routine opposition did not succeed; many of our comrades north of the border do not understand that barristers are expected and indeed required to represent people they do not approve of or agree with. A defence, particularly a successful defence, of Mr Lai would not go down well with the large group of commentators who call for judicial reform every time a court makes a decision they disagree with.

The DoJ also opposed Mr Lai’s application, and persisted in this opposition by appealing against the original judge’s ruling. This is harder to explain. Did the department not wish to import David Perry QC (the Queen then still being alive) to prosecute Mr Lai in another case, just last year?

I do not remember the point coming up at the time but I rather fancy Mr Perry does not speak Cantonese either. His decision to withdraw from the case may have been due to a storm in British political circles, or to some belated research into Hong Kong’s quarantine rules at the time for arriving travellers.

His withdrawal was roundly condemned by the usual chorus as a lost opportunity, an affront to the rule of law, and a demonstration of ignorance of Hong Kong’s many merits in British government circles.

The DoJ’s approach appears to be that it may usefully employ Mr Perry to prosecute Mr Lai in one case, but Mr Lai may not employ Mr Owen to defend him in another. Years of training allow lawyers to float undisturbed past such paradoxes. To the layman it looks unfair.

Similarly we shall no doubt soon be told that having one foreign judge at a time on the CFA is a useful protection of human rights, legality and other platitudes, but having a foreign barrister defending a local accused is an affront to the legal system and an insult to the legal profession.

Indeed Mr Leung Chun-ying, a reliable source of oratorical overkill, has already jumped into action. The three appeal judges who approved Mr Owen’s visit were “inviting British people to ‘develop’ national security law in Hong Kong China.”

This is the same Mr Leung who said that when two British judges withdrew from the Court of Final Appeal roster it was “a stain on the independence of the British judiciary” which had made Britain “a laughing stock.” The CFA has already ruled on national security cases.

He had no complaints about the invitation to Mr Perry. Now he complains that the judges who decided to admit Mr Owen have “humiliated” the local legal sector. Why a total of four judges should have agreed to do such a thing he did not say. Anyway Mr Leung, a serial offender against the building regulations, is an unlikely authority on the rule of law.

Indeed we seem to have a serious surplus of people in Hong Kong for whom the rule of law is a mere slogan, to be deployed when expedient and discarded whenever a judge produces a decision which they do not like. With defenders like this, who needs enemies?

Please believe me I am not a Luddite.

True, I was watching the check-out ritual at Taste the other day, which seemed to consist of a multiplicity of cards, coupons and receipts going back and forth. And I thought, wouldn’t it be nice if there was one piece of paper which was accepted in all shops. And then I realised I was reinventing money.

But seriously, I may be old enough to remember when London telephone exchanges had names, and your school desks had a hole in it where you would keep your ink pot. But I have moved with the times.

I had a long stint on a borrowed Apple II in 1980, met my first newspaper production computer in 1982 and had my own computer at home – a real IBM – in 1984. Like everyone else I fell for the fax machine, the pager and the mobile phone as they got cheaper. I acknowledge the importance of the microchip. But there should be limits.

Lately I have noticed restaurants are dispensing with the services of the attendant who used to take your order. In one place, which I like, they have a tablet computer fixed to each table and you order through that. Some of the food arrives on a sort of conveyor belt. Japanese restaurants seem to like this sort of thing.

The Hong Kong idea, now that you can’t enter a restaurant without your phone for COVID purposes, is to have a QR code on the table with which you can get on the restaurant’s web site, and the menu, with your mobile.

But, you may think, someone still has to show you to your seat and deliver your food. Not any more they don’t.

Last week I visited a restaurant which had taken automation to new heights. The entrance screening was on the “honour” system. There was the official QR code and a mobile phone (securely fixed to the furniture) to which you could show your vaccine pass and get a “ding dong” of approval.

You were then left to find your own seat which, of course, had another QR code in front of it. Your order disappeared into the system and was delivered by a mobile gadget which looked like a sophisticated variation on the Hong Kong litter bin, or if you have a long memory like a small Dalek with two shelves where the “exterminate” gadget used to be.

There were several of these machines floating about, politely making way for each other and stopping whenever they thought they might collide with a human. On the shelves would be your food. You were then supposed to press a little button to tell your robot to go home. I did wonder how long it would stand there if you missed this point.

We were invited to pay by phone, and that concluded your meal, consumed with no contact with a human at all. Actually this did not quite work for us, because we needed a paper receipt to qualify for free parking. But they are trying.

And the question which now arises is of course whether the depersonalised dining experience is a Good Thing.

I note with dismay that this is presumably going to destroy a large number of fairly unskilled but usefully flexible-hours jobs. No doubt the management will announce as the first robot comes in through the door that this will enable the team to provide a whole new dimension of excellent service. Do not believe this.

During my early years as a journalist the microchip was gradually taking over newspaper production. On every occasion we were told that the new technology would make lives easier and the output better. There would be later deadlines and more special editions.

This is not what happened at all. Newspaper proprietors were able to make enormous savings by sacking a lot of typesetters and compositors. The deadlines remained the same and so did the number of editions. Profits increased.

So if you are a waiter you need to face the possibility that you are going to be replaced by a wired litter bin on wheels.

From the diner’s point of view I suppose it depends. In cafeteria-style places, where you order, collect and pay at different places, there isn’t much human contact anyway. Teahouses may be reluctant to go in for service robots, if only because they will require wide aisles and step-free dining spaces.

In more up-market establishments … we shall see. In my experience a friendly and well-briefed server adds pleasure and value to the experience. This is particularly the case if you are a regular customer and your restaurant is a place where people know you by name.

I suppose it is only a matter of time before artificial intelligence advances to the point where your waiter Dalek can slide up to you and say “Hi Tim! Are you having the usual?” But it won’t be the same.

In the meantime this will undoubtably enchant your kids, at least the first time. If you can’t find fully automated service near you try Oliver’s in New Town Plaza Phase 3, Shatin. Don’t tell the robot I sent you. I don’t trust them.

Freedom of the Press? Our government not only does not care for it; it does not know the meaning of the words.

Consider the current prosecution of two journalists and the production company of Stand News. We must not, while the case is ongoing, explore the legal peculiarities of the case. We can, though, deduce a great deal from the policing techniques.

As soon as Apple Daily had been killed, a policeman was assigned the task of collecting items from Stand News’s website. He collected more than 300. Of these 17 were selected as a basis for prosecution, and a further 13 were disclosed to the defence. The existence of the other 270 only emerged during the trial.

None of the 17 articles selected was prosecuted as subversive in itself. The selection is supposed to show the subversive intentions of the two editors on trial.

And this really will not do. It is an important function of a news outlet to report the existence of a wide range of points of view, including many with which it may not agree. If you are allowed to take half a per cent of a website’s output and construct a “line” with it then you can show that it agrees with almost anything.

I would not be surprised to hear that Stand News was broadly sympathetic to the democratic cause, but this cannot be shown by picking out 17 articles. What was in all the other stuff?

It would be interesting to know if one of the national security cops is now working on a similarly selective approach to Ming Pao, which has been getting some stick from the Security Bureau lately.

The latest spat concerns CBD (cannabidiol for scientists), on which the government intends to impose a total ban. Imports and possession will be treated as drugs offences and will attract accordingly draconian sentences.

The bureau was offended, apparently, by a commentary written by Lun Chi-wai, former chairman of the Hong Kong Social Workers General Union. Brevity is not among the bureau’s virtues but the heart of its complaint goes like this:

“When commenting on the publication of a gazette notice for bringing CBD under the control of the First Schedule to the Dangerous Drugs Ordinance, the article seriously distorts the intent of safeguarding public health by controlling CBD through legislation, and purposely misinterprets such legislation as relating to the policy of the Mainland, which may sow discord between the Mainland and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. The Government has repeatedly explained the hazards of CBD and its scientific justifications for controlling the substance as a dangerous drugs to the Legislative Council, members of public and the sectors concerned. The welfare sector has also voiced its support. The article turns a blind eye to these facts, downplays the harmful effects caused by drug abuse and irrationally associates our legislation with the Mainland. The content may cause dissention between the two places, and may confuse the public as well as affect their vigilance against drugs. We are deeply regret over it.”

Now it may be true that the government has repeatedly explained the hazards of CBD and the alleged scientific justifications for treating it as a dangerous drug, but that does not – in places which enjoy press freedom — require op ed writers to assume uncritically that the hazards are real and the scientific justifications can be substantiated by a look at the evidence.

The government’s view of the matter may be compared with that of the World Health Organisation, which is that “In humans, CBD exhibits no effects indicative of any abuse or dependence potential…. To date, there is no evidence of public health related problems associated with the use of pure CBD.”

The nameless enthusiast who compiled CBD’s very substantial Wikipedia entry has this: “In 2022, the HKSAR Government proposed a ban on any use of cannabidiol (including for academic research and by medical professionals) within the Hong Kong territory, making Hong Kong the first jurisdiction in the world to have complete prohibition of cannabidiol, starting from Feb 1, 2023, in part due to the possible presence of THC which is illegal in Hong Kong..” THC is the active ingredient in the cannabis fun leaves.

We’re unique. This suggests that there may be something eccentric about the official local view of the matter. This is tough luck for some people. A CBD drug called Epidiolex has been approved in both the US and Europe for the treatment of some rare forms of epilepsy found in young children.

Studies continue on the use of CBD for adults to treat anxiety, insomnia, chronic pain and addiction to booze and tobacco. In Canada there is a committee on cannabis products, which “unanimously agrees CBD is safe and tolerable for short-term use (up to 30 days) at doses from 20 milligrams per day to … 200 mg/day via oral administration for healthy adults, provided they discuss the use of all other medications and substances used with their pharmacist.”

In 2020 the Therapeutic Drugs Administration of Australia decided to “allow TGA approved low-dose CBD containing products, up to a maximum of 150 mg/day, for use in adults, to be supplied over-the-counter by a pharmacist, without a prescription.”

Back in Canada a subcommittee also agreed that “there was sufficient evidence regarding the efficacy of CBD for the treatment of pain associated with osteoarthritis in dogs.”

All these careful musings concerned the use of CBD as an internal medicine. Adding a bit of it to face creams and such like seems to be entirely uncontroversial in most places.

Under the circumstances it seems at least arguable that Hong Kong’s proposed blanket ban is a hysterical over-reaction to the fact that CBD comes from the evil cannabis plant, although it is well established that you can’t have illlicit fun with it.

What really puzzles me, though, is the bureau’s indignant denial that the legal situation on the mainland had anything to do with the decision. This is odd. Surely any responsible government would consider the problems which have emerged when things obtainable in Hong Kong were not available on the mainland – from racy books to dependable supplies of baby formula.

Anyway, whatever you think of CBD there is an intimidating conclusion to the Security Bureau’s diatribe, which goes like this:  “The SB expressed grave concern about the misleading articles published by Ming Pao recently, including the commentary on the Immigration Department’s handling of screening of Trafficking in Persons cases and the newspaper cartoon about the police officer’s handling of requests for assistance by schools.”

Big Brother really is watching you. Me too, probably. Can’t say I feel as free as I used to.

We are often told that national security judges are just like the other judges – same oath, same impartiality and all that. In the light of recent performances we must fervently hope that this is not the case.

Consider, for example, the latest outing by Judge Kwok Wai-kin. Judge Kwok is a generous source of material for writers of observations on the local legal scene, for which we are duly grateful.

His latest spot in the limelight involved four kids charged with conspiracy to commit subversion, an offence under the national security law. Their real offence seems to have been to be office-bearers or spokespeople for Student Politicism, a dissident group.

The prosecution complained of street booths in favour of causes like supporting the 12-man speedboat crew who were caught fleeing to Taiwan, and “resisting anti-COVID measures”, but we shall not explore this part of the case further because the four pleaded guilty, as one does these days if one wants to be tried before 2024.

Pleading guilty did not produce a great acceleration in this case, however. They pleaded guilty in July, sentencing in October. So it goes.

Judge Kwok’s first task was to classify the offence. National Security offences come in three sizes, like MacDonalds fried potato portions: small, medium and large, with prescribed sentence ranges accordingly. This case was, the learned judge decided, in the minor category.

So far so good. He then went on to explain why, as seems to be the norm in Nat Sec cases, he was declining to be influenced by the points made in mitigation by the defendants’ lawyers. At this point the case involved “very serious crimes”.

And this, it seems to me, leaves Judge Kwok with a problem. Having used “very serious crimes”, for a minor offence what is he going to use for a major one? This is a mere linguistic difficulty which I shall leave with him but it could be very confusing for defendants. What bothers me is what came next. The defendants, Judge Kwok complained, had been promoting the concept of a “Hong Kong nation”.

“Since ancient times, Hong Kong has been a part of China, and Hongkongers belong to the Chinese nationality. ‘Hong Kong nation’ is only a concept constructed by those promoting Hong Kong independence, it has no historical or legal basis,” Kwok said.

This is a dip into a tricky area which judges do not need to enter and would be well advised to avoid. To start with it is manifest nonsense to say that Hong Kong has been part of China since ancient times, if only because for parts of that long historical period there was no China to be part of. Either there were multiple Chinas in what we now consider China or China itself was part of someone else’s empire, as it was between 1644 and 1911.

There is also more sophistication in the idea of a “Hong Kong nation” than your average judge may be well up with. “Nation” in modern parlance may mean “nation state”, a political entity with a flag, anthem, government, army, UN seat, World Cup team and so on. Without the “state” bit it is commonly used for groups which cherish a distinctive history, language, culture and perhaps religion, but have not acquired the political structure, or in some cases sought it.

Some “nations” have never translated themselves into states, like the Kurds. Some have had a patchy history, like the Armenians, currently a small state. Some are more or less happy parts of a bigger state but still regard themselves as nations, like the Scots.

The idea that a state should also contain a nation, rather than being the personal property of a hereditary monarch, really dates as an idea only to the 18^th century, as a popular aspiration to the 19^th and as a widespread arrangement only to the 20^th.

It is hopelessly anachronistic to transfer the idea of the nation state, or citizens’ nationality, back to ancient times. Judges should beware of sounding like Vladimir Putin’s line on Ukraine.

This brings us to Mr Peter Law, Principal Magistrate, National Security choice, and presiding genius in the trial of members of the organisation which used to run the Tiananmen Massacre commemoration in Victoria Park.

Mr Law had to adjudicate on a little procedural hiccup. Defendant Chow Hang-tung, who is defending herself but is a barrister so that’s OK, was cross-examining a witness from the Nat Sec Police when she used the phrase “Tiananmen Massacre”. Prosecuting counsel objected to the wording and suggested “June 4^th Incident” instead. Mr Law decided that “massacre” was too political for use in court and forbad its use.

He proceeded later to proscribe the use of “killings” as well.

This will be good news for some people. Fans of Herod the Great can rehabilitate the old tyrant as he only perpetrated the “Incident of the Innocents”. Members of the Clan MacDonald need no longer resent or avenge the “Glencoe Incident”. There may even be some hope for Adolf Hitler; shall we say 6 million involuntary suicides?

Observers who suspect that Mr Law’s procedural puritanism has its own political patina will wonder if he would also have objected to “Nanjing Massacre”.

Judges who have succeeded in not sounding like Mr Putin also need to avoid the example of the president of Turkey, Mr Recep (Armenian genocide? Never happened!) Erdogan. Stick to the law and do not dabble in history.