Govt Decides To Appeal Small House Policy Ruling

The government has decided to appeal against a High Court ruling over the controversial Small-House Policy.

The court ruled in April that male indigenous villagers should only have the right to build their own three-storey home on ancestral land, and not plots obtained from the government.

The Development Bureau said the court judgement involves the interpretation of Article 40 of the Basic Law, which is a matter of constitutional importance.

Article 40 of the mini-constitution stipulates that “lawful traditional rights and interests of the indigenous inhabitants of the ‘New Territories’ shall be protected by the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region”.

While the bureau said legal advisers believe the government has grounds to lodge an appeal, it did not specify what those grounds are.

Democratic Party lawmaker Andrew Wan said he’s extremely disappointed with the government’s decision, saying authorities had sided with rural villagers and “betrayed” the rights of all other Hong Kong people.

The April ruling by the High Court came after "King of judicial reviews" Kwok Cheuk-kin along with social worker Hendrick Lui, challenged the policy.

The court did not accept their arguments of sexual discrimination, but upheld the argument about whether the rights are traditional and traceable to before 1898 when the New Territories were leased to Britain.