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Posts Tagged ‘chris-tang’

Commenting on, or criticising, court cases is both legal and helpful

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on March 10, 2025| 1 Comment »

It is nice to know that the Secretary for Security reads Ming Pao. Think of the alternatives. Sadly however the secretary, Chris Tang, often does not appear to enjoy his reading.

The last item to arouse Mr Tang’s ire was an op ed on the latest legal instalment of the Yuen Long incident, by law professor Johannes Chan. “The author, who is a law professor, has once again published a biased article,” Mr Tang complained, “deliberately ignoring the fact that some white-clad people have already been brought to justice, misleading readers with a warped perspective that the court has made an unfair judgment regarding either party, shaking the public’s confidence in the court system, and undermining the rule of law in Hong Kong, which must be condemned.”

Mr Tang went on to say that the afterword, commonly added to opinion pieces these days, saying there was no intention to incite hatred of the government, did not discharge the obligation on the editor to ensure that his publication was “fair, objective and unbiased.”

He concluded “It is hoped that Ming Pao will not continue to be exploited by people with ulterior motives to use this platform to spread confusing remarks, to poison the community, and to create conflicts.”

Now I propose to ignore some of this. Opinion pieces are not supposed to be fair, objective and unbiased. They are expressions of opinion. Moreover if Mr Tang wishes to campaign with any credibility for unbiased media he needs to avoid the impression that he has some unique problem with Ming Pao.

I shall also pass by the bit about white-clad people being brought to justice, which strictly speaking is entirely irrelevant. Injustice to one defendant cannot be balanced by justice to another.

More interesting is Mr Tang’s claim that the offending piece misled readers into the “warped perspective” that the court had made an unfair judgment, and that this had “shaken the public’s confidence in the court system”, thereby undermining the rule of law.

This is, alas, nonsense. The rule of law has never required the public to believe that judges are infallible. In 1793 the then Chief Justice, Lord Kenyon, said that “In the hurry of business, the most able Judges are liable to err.”

More recently we can consider the view of Lord Denning:”We do not fear criticism, nor do we resent it. For there is something far more important at stake. It is no less than freedom of speech itself…Those who comment can deal faithfully with all that is done in a court of justice. They can say that we are mistaken, and our decisions erroneous, whether they are subject to appeal or not.”

Or there is the rather more literary, oft-quoted, opinion of Lord Atkin (more famous as an innovator in business law), which goes in part “The path of criticism is a public way. The wrong-headed are permitted to err therein… Justice is not a cloistered virtue; she must be allowed to suffer the scrutiny and respectful, even if outspoken, comments of ordinary men.”

I infer that Mr Tang is offering the courts a protection which they have never sought and do not need. If a judge makes a statement about the law it is open to criticism and comment. Similarly if the judge is sitting alone and has to make findings of fact, they may also be scrutinised. The rule of law is fortified, not weakened, if the activities of the courts can be discussed and debated.

He may also care to consider that freedom of the press is not furthered by threatening words from officials in the law and order industry, and if the government wishes to offer a running commentary on media output this might be better left to the information specialists.

Mr Tang’s repeated insistence that appending “this piece is not intended to inspire hatred of the government,” or words to that effect, is not an effective bar to prosecution, is unnecessary. We all know that. It’s like starting a novel with the usual stuff about “no resemblance to real persons, living or dead”. This will not keep you out of the libel courts if your lead villain is an erratic politician called Ronald Frump.

Mr Tang may be a happier reader if he bears in mind the wise words of the American judge Robert Jackson: “The price of freedom of religion or of speech or of the press is that we must put up with, and even pay for, a good deal of rubbish.”

And if tempted to rush to the defence of some official masterpiece he might also bear in mind another observation from the same judge: “Who does not prefer good to ill report of his work? And if fame — a good public name — is, as Milton said, the “last infirmity of a noble mind”, it is frequently the first infirmity of a mediocre one.”

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Security chief, red rag, bull … journalists?

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on June 25, 2024| Leave a Comment »

What is it, one wonders, about Chris Tang, the Secretary for Security, and the Hong Kong Journalists’ Association? Mr Tang, after all, has a lot on his plate. He is responsible for repelling every threat to peace, order and national security in Hong Kong. The latter, we are often told, needs constant alertness and attention. Yet it seems Mr Tang is never too busy to have a go at the HKJA.

The Association is a small voluntary body aiming to serve and protect the interests of people working in journalism. It does the usual things: seminars, workshops, occasional dinners and the odd press release on relevant matters. It has sometimes run a football competition.

Let me declare, if this counts as an interest, that I was a member for many years. When I first arrived in Hong Kong the JA was a bit of an expat hobby. It was founded by two foreigners in the 70s after a scandalous incident in which the Fire Brigade – which in those days, like the police force and for similar reasons, did not welcome press coverage – turned its hoses on the reporters assembled to watch a performance.

In those days people arriving to work in the humbler parts of Hong Kong journalism (I had been recruited by the Standard) did not join the Foreign Correspondents’ Club, which regarded people merely writing for local consumption as peasants. You joined the HKJA for the serious stuff and the Press Club for fun.

The Press Club ran a Wanchai bar situated beguilingly between a night club where frustrated rich men could meet mercenary fast ladies, and a motel in which the ensuing relationships could be consummated. Once a year the JA and the Press Club jointly organised a ball, which was what you might call a colourful occasion, both in dress and behaviour.

During the 80s there was a growing culture clash between the two organisations, which led to the HKJA dropping out of the ball and running its own annual fundraising dinner, a more respectable event. The Press Club was rescued from its continuing flirtation with bankruptcy by an unfrocked accountant called Len Dreaver and eventually dropped the Ball. The club closed altogether in 1997 because so many members had left Hong Kong.

After that the HKJA was really the only game in town, unless you could afford the FCC and had a taste for its somewhat expat alcoholic ambience.

During the ensuing 20 years or so I do not remember any particular tension between the HKJA and the Security Branch. There was a period in which I was regularly recruited to do a session on media relations with officers approaching promotion; after each session we of course had some open discussion, and this often featured complaints about inaccurate or intrusive reporting.

I imagine in most places with a free press you would get the same sort of thing. We would then go on to laments about the absence of a complaint mechanism for people upset about their treatment by the media, to which I would reply that we would be quite happy to have a complaints procedure as long as it was modelled on the police one.

This was all good clean fun and embodied the commonsense truism that the relationship between press and police will always involve some conflict because the objectives of the two groups sometimes coincide and sometimes don’t.

This brings us to 2019 when relations understandably became a bit strained. Mr Tang was then in charge of the police. The HKJA, like any journalists’ union worthy of the name, eagerly pressed for access to events and against violence inflicted on its members.

Since that time Mr Tang has resoundingly condemned the association and all its works on several occasions, questioning who it represents, who it gets its money from and whether it should be invited to press conferences on relevant matters. He has accused it of “infiltrating schools” and defending people who swore at policewomen. At one point he suggested the association should publicise its entire membership list, a curious suggestion from a government which condemned the publication of national security judges’ mere names as “doxing”.

This barrage gave the understandable impression, in the context of the times, that the HKJA was expected either to disband itself, like the Professional Teachers Union, or elect a more “patriotic” – or more tactfully “neutral” – leadership, like the Hong Kong Bar Association.

And so to last Friday, when the HKJA elected a new leadership, and Mr Tang rose to the occasion with “Looking at [the list of candidates], it looks more like a foreign journalist association to me. Most of them are journalists from foreign media, some are freelancers, some are not even journalists and their organisations have engaged in political activities.” Mr Tang was disturbed that the executive was light on representatives from local mainstream media.

Actually this has always been a problem, if it is a problem. Many mainstream media proprietors are violently opposed to trade unions generally and particularly to trade unions which seek to represent their employees. The JA leadership has consequently always been a bit overweight on the non-profit-making parts of the media business, like RTHK, and underweight on major media groups in private ownership. Insert the usual suspects here.

One must add that over the last five years or so the mainstream media have much diminished, and are now heavily outnumbered by the directly or indirectly state-owned sector, and the voluntary castrato chorus whose owners like a quiet life.

Many journalists who are still trying to pursue the activity in its traditional form may now feel that their lives are exciting enough without accepting office in an organisation which is clearly in the government’s crosshairs. In fact two members of the executive put in their resignations between the end of nominations and the counting of the votes.

Still, the question who is a journalist seems to be one about which one can think of more reliable sources than Mr Tang. Bernard Levin memorable pondered in one piece whether journalism was an art, a craft, a trade, a confidence trick or a disease. Each of these theories would lead to a different definition but none of them supports the suggestion that entry to the profession should be monitored by a retired policeman.

What seems to me worthy of comment and universally overlooked is that Mr Tang’s preoccupation with the HKJA has apparently led to spying on it. No doubt the identities of the candidates and their professional activities were transmitted to voters. But Mr Tang is, I presume, not an HKJA member so he was not entitled to see them.

Commenting on the antecedents and character of the candidates looks dangerously close to the sort of intimidating letter which concludes with some such phrase as “we know where you live”.

So I salute the incoming executive, who are no doubt well aware that one mis-step could bring them a long encounter with the government’s correctional servants. As Sophie Scholl wrote: “How can we expect righteousness to prevail if there is hardly anyone willing to give himself up individually to a righteous cause?”

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