Not Tied To Arbitration Cases Now: Teresa Cheng

The Secretary for Justice Teresa Cheng said on Friday that she had resigned from three arbitration cases which a local daily report said the minister had been involved in after taking up the cabinet post, raising the possibility of misconduct in public office.

But the minister did not specify when she left the cases.

Cheng was given permission by Chief Executive Carrie Lam to continue with six cases that were close to completion, but the Apple Daily report said the minister was involved in another three cases which began after she took up the post. The report also said Cheng resigned from the three cases within three months.

Answering questions from a pack of media reporters who sought Cheng's reaction to the report, the justice secretary said: "The three cases I assume you are talking about are the three cases, the World Bank exit cases. They are in the public domain. So you can all go on the web and see that in all those three cases, I have well resigned as arbitrator."

"Those three cases continue but I am not the arbitrator and if there is any reporting that says that I had not resigned from those three cases, they are wrong," Cheng said.

As for the actual time that she resigned from the three cases, Cheng said: "The resignation process has to be looked in at this way first of all, bearing in mind the sixes cases that I have had to handle for the reasons that already we have mentioned when I took appointment as the secretary for justice."

"The cases of which there is no further involvement or that I can resign without causing too much trouble to the parties, I have completely resigned. So all the cases, I have resigned."

The minister then ended the briefing and left without taking any more questions.