Majority Content With HK's Rule Of Law: Think Tank

The Bauhinia Foundation Research Centre said on Thursday that a majority of people they surveyed recently were either happy or satisfied with the rule of law in Hong Kong.

Only 28 percent said they were unhappy with the situation, but the survey found that young people are generally more critical.

The pro-government think tank conducted the study in November, a month before the government announced that it was not prosecuting former chief executive CY Leung over his acceptance of HK$50 million from Australian engineering firm UGL.

But the centre's vice chairman, Lau Ming-wai, said his group doesn't carry out surveys based on just one incident.

A thousand people were surveyed, and nearly 35 percent of them said they were satisfied with the rule of law in the city. Thirty seven percent of the respondents said the situation was "average".

Respondents were also asked to give scores from zero to 10, on several topics related to the rule of law.

Four areas didn't score too highly – preventing government abuse of powers, having an open government, the local judiciary resolving problems on its own, and judicial independence. These topics had scores ranging from 5.2 to 5.6.

But Lau called the overall situation positive, while acknowledging more could still be done.

"Like any parents in Hong Kong, nobody likes low marks. But I think given that the poll finds five and above as positive, I think we need to interpret this in that context," he said.

"You can argue that everything should be 10 … But certainly I think it seems like there’s more work to do on the low-scoring topics than say crime and law and order."

Maintenance of law and order got the highest score among all topics, at 6.8.

The survey also found that younger people, as well as those who support greater democracy or localism, gave lower scores than others.