Judiciary, Education In Need Of Reform: Junius Ho

Pro-establishment lawmaker Junius Ho has urged the government to reform Hong Kong’s judiciary and education system, in light of last year’s social unrest.

Speaking on RTHK’s Letter to Hong Kong, Ho said students and teachers had made up a significant proportion of those arrested by the police during the protests last year.

“From what we witnessed last year and also the composition of those people arrested in riots and unlawful gatherings, 40 percent of the 10,000 arrestees is made up of students,” he said. “Over a hundred of them are teachers too.”

He questioned why they supported Hong Kong independence and find the motherland “so repugnant”, and said he – to a certain extent – concurred with some who suggest the lack of national education in schools is the source of the problem.

He also said a committee should be set up to lay down harsher sentencing guidelines in protest-related cases.

“In so far as our judiciary is concerned, the process of which is not pacing quick enough with the social needs,” he said.

“Increasing judges is part of the solution but very often the inadequacy in relief and sentencing in some of the cases which triggered the public outcry justify the introduction of some kind of sentencing committee to assist the court in achieving appropriate deterrent effect to address the social mischiefs.”

Ho, a lawyer, also said the UK's Solicitors Regulation Authority, or SRA, was being misled in summoning him to a hearing over remarks he made in 2017.

At an anti-independence rally, a rural leader said on stage that pro-independence activists should be "killed", to which Ho added "without mercy."

Ho accused activists who lodged complaints against him of launching a political attack and said the SRA had compromised its independence.

“What a shame that the same bunch of people who influenced my Alma Mater to strip off my Honourable Doctorate Degree in just less than three days and deprived my right to be heard on the charge last year, now they try to influence the SRA again,” Ho said.

“It is so sad to see that the independence of the academy and legal profession be compromised in such a way.”