'JR King' Launches New Challenge In Jab Case

A man on Thursday filed for a judicial review to challenge the government's changing of the law to empower it to invalidate vaccine exemptions.

Kwok Cheuk-kin said he thinks there should be a mechanism to appeal against such legal amendments, which he claimed was against the constitution and disrupted the rule of law.

"(I think) the chance of winning is very small, but why am I still doing this? It's because many people, especially those with disability and children, said they have gone through lots of difficulties, saving money every month, to get such medical exemptions," said Kwok, who is also dubbed “king of judicial reviews” for the numerous legal challenges he filed.

His new legal challenge came just a week after his judicial review led the court to quash the government's decision to annul some 20,000 Covid vaccine exemptions issued by seven doctors, who were accused of handing out the documents without conducting proper medical consultations.

The High Court ruled last Friday that Health Secretary Lo Chung-mau had no power to invalidate the certificates.

In response, the government announced it would not appeal against the ruling, but would amend the law to give the health minister the power to invalidate vaccine exemption certificates if there are grounds to believe they were issued without proper medical consultation.

Officials said the legal amendment, which took effect on Wednesday, "fulfils Hong Kong's best interests" after considering factors including the urgency of anti-epidemic work and the time it would take to launch an appeal.