Court Refuses To Halt Stand News Sedition Trial

Two former top editors of the now-defunct Stand News have lost a bid to terminate their sedition trial, after the District Court ruled that a fair trial is still possible despite prosecutors failing to hand over all of the related material they have gathered.

Chung Pui-kuen and Patrick Lam are accused of conspiring to publish 17 seditious articles between July 7, 2020, and December 29 last year.

Their lawyers earlier applied for a permanent stay of proceedings, after they found that prosecutors had failed to submit more than 500 other articles to the court.

They argued that the documents might have affected how they handled the case and interrogated witnesses.

However, Judge Kwok Wai-kin said the defence was unable to prove that the failure to disclose those documents, or the delay in doing so, rendered the trial unfair.

He added that it also couldn't prove that continuing with the trial would represent an abuse of process.

The former news outlet's parent company, Best Pencil (Hong Kong) Limited, is also charged with the same offence.