COMMENTHK Criminal Justice
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10 | Wednesday, May 13, 2020 HONG KONG EDITION| CHINA DAILY COMMENTHK TO THE POINT Criminal justice: Germany STAFF WRITER must hand back HK fugitives Willful blindness in SAR Grenville Cross calls for Germany to respect SAR’s judicial dangerous, destructive Chief Executive Carrie Lam of “cultivating critical thinking”. system and revoke refugee status for two absconding rioters Cheng Yuet-ngor was asked How else can anyone explain whether she has any proof for why a 13-year-old student har- n April 29, the Court of makes clear, a refugee is somebody who has her claim that some teachers are bors such bitter hatred against Appeal dismissed the a “well-founded fear of being persecuted “poisoning” children with biased his own country that he set fi re appeals against sentence for reasons of race, religion, nationality, views and spreading “false and to the national fl ag, leading to of three defendants membership in a particular social group, biased information” in schools. his arrest? And how else can you convicted of rioting and or political opinion”. Since Wong and Li fell That this was the fi rst ques- explain why a 19-year-old student assaulting police in the into none of these categories, and were only tion for Lam when she met the is so vicious that he slashed the Mong Kok riots during being prosecuted because of their alleged media before Tuesday’s Executive neck of a police o cer with a the Lunar New Year holiday in 2016 (CACC Grenville Cross involvement in street violence, their asylum Council meeting suggests she has box-cutter in public without any O164/2018). Edward Leung Tin-kei, Lo Kin- The author is a senior counsel, law profes- claim was manifestly bogus. poked a hornets’ nest — inadver- provocation? sor and criminal justice analyst, and was man and Wong Ka-kui had been sentenced Given, moreover, its diplomatic presence tently or otherwise. Allowing their conscience to be previously the director of public prosecu- to prison terms of six, seven, and three and a in Hong Kong, Germany should have known But it takes willful blindness for compromised by their political tions of Hong Kong. half years respectively. Leung and Lo had been far better than to have opened its doors to anyone not to see that our pupils beliefs, many intelligent people, convicted after a jury trial in the High Court in local fugitives. As its consul general, Dieter are being poisoned mentally in including the reporter who asked 2018, while Wong pleaded guilty. bail, over the objections of prosecutors, then Lamle, must appreciate, Hong Kong’s judi- schools — and our younger gen- Lam for proof of “poisoning At his fi rst trial, on May 28, 2018, Leung failed to appear for trial. They eventually ciary, buttressed by the Basic Law, is famed eration is being deliberately led minds”, pretend not to see young- was convicted of rioting in Argyle Street, surfaced in Germany in 2019, where they throughout Asia for its independence, pro- down the path to self-destruction. sters being brainwashed, intoxi- but acquitted of inciting a riot, with the jury had been granted asylum the previous year. fessionalism and competence. Everybody No other place in the world, cated and radicalized by political unable to reach a verdict on a charge of riot- Although the German authorities were charged with the Mong Kok riots received other than war zones, is witness- zealots pretending to be profes- ing in Portland Street. One of his co-defen- tight-lipped about their actions, they were a fair trials before juries, with some convicted ing so many of its youngsters sional educational workers. dants, Lam Lun-hing, was acquitted outright calculated insult to Hong Kong and its rule and others acquitted, and Lamle will hope- harboring unwarranted hatred They might have thought those of three riot charges, while the jury could not of law. They were presumably hoodwinked fully have explained all this to his superiors against their compatriots and are others’ children after all. But reach a decision on the riot charges faced by by the two cowards, who would rather run in Berlin. Indeed, according to the World country. No other place has wit- how can they feel comfortable Lee Nok-man and Lam Ngo-hin, although away than face justice. To their credit, Leung Justice Project’s Rule of Law Index 2020, nessed its young people repeat- when they know the chickens will Lam was acquitted of an unlawful assembly. and the other suspects attended their own Hong Kong’s global ranking was 16th out of edly torching public facilities and eventually come home to roost? When Leung was re-tried, the jury acquit- trials, and placed their fate in the hands of the 128 places surveyed, and even higher for vandalizing their hometown. No Political brainwashing, intoxica- ted him, on March 22, 2019, of the Portland the jury. Wong and Li, however, chose to criminal justice, where it came in at 14th. other place has so often seen its tion and radicalization do not Street riot. His co-defendants, Lam Ngo-hin run, an admission of guilt if ever there was Since they fl ed to Germany, Wong and Li young people waving fl ags of for- discriminate when it comes to and Lee Nok-man, were also acquitted of one, and then bleated away about not being have become familiar sights at anti-China mer colonists who once invaded victimizing the young. How can their rioting charges, while Yung Wai-ip was able to receive a fair trial, which, as anyone events, often appearing under the auspices their country, occupied their anyone be sure their children, convicted of three of the seven charges he familiar with our jury system can attest, was of the Green Party. When, for example, homeland and humiliated their grand-children, siblings or chil- faced. Quite clearly, the jury system worked a bare-faced lie. thanks to the UK’s Hong Kong Watch, stu- ancestors. dren of their loved ones will not well in both trials, and acquittals resulted On June 7, Wong sought to justify his fl ight dent activists from the “Hong Kong Higher All of these and other strange be the next victims? It is naive in the cases where the prosecution had not by making various specious claims, and Institutions International A¤ airs Delega- yet mind-boggling actions by our to think anyone will be the win- proved guilt beyond reasonable doubt. even placed reliance on the former governor, tion”, led by the City University’s cretinous young people are the fruits of ner in a society whose younger In the Court of Appeal, the chief judge of Chris Patten, a sure sign of desperation. In Joey Siu (of Tim Sebastian fame), visited years of brainwashing or intoxica- generation is being radicalized or the High Court, Jeremy Poon Shiu-chor, said one of his regular paroxysms, Patten, ever Germany in September, to meet some China tion in schools under the guise brainwashed by pernicious ideas. the trial judge had correctly imposed puni- the barrack-room lawyer, had claimed, in bashers at the Bundestag and malign Hong tive and deterrent sentences on Leung, Lo 2018, that the Public Order Ordinance (Cap Kong, Wong was again on hand. and Wong, whose riotous conduct had an 245), under which the rioters were charged, Although Wong and Li have obviously immediate and extremely serious impact on was in “direct contravention” of the Interna- pulled the wool over the eyes of the BAME, the rule of law. At trial, the evidence showed tional Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, things can still be put to rights. Any dispen- that the localist group, Hong Kong Indige- as applied in Hong Kong through the Basic sation obtained in such circumstances is nous, had fl ooded people into the area, after Law. On the back of this, Wong argued that null and void, and justice must now be done. Food and Environmental Hygiene o cers “since we thought we could not have a fair As the German authorities will have seen, began a clearance operation against unli- trial, we had good reason to leave”. the pair’s co-defendants received fair trials, censed hawkers. Hundreds of protesters set What Patten, of course, had failed to point at which the full extent of the violence and fi res and threw bricks and wooden pallets at out was that anyone charged with a criminal injury was revealed, and they can now see Keeping the police, with over 80 o cers injured. The o¤ ense can challenge its constitutionality how fl awed their decision was to grant them it safe rioting, which was premeditated, also saw before the courts. He also kept mum about safe haven. cars torched and public property damaged. the fact that, whenever the Public Order The Surrender of Fugitive O¤ enders Residents The trial judge, Anthea Pang Po-kam, Ordinance has been challenged in the Hong Agreement between Hong Kong and Ger- walk along described the conduct of the rioters as “orga- Kong Court of Final Appeal, which currently many took e¤ ect on April 11, 2009. It makes a pedestrian nized violence”, and, quite clearly, no society includes three former presidents of the UK provision for the return of criminal fugitives bridge in Tsuen Wan, with would tolerate such behavior. It was, by any Supreme Court, its legitimacy has been vali- between the two places, subject to certain large housing exceptions, none of which is applicable to yardstick, a very serious case of its type, and dated. He also failed to explain why, if he dis- blocks in the exemplary sentences were fully justifi ed.