Pro-Beijing Lawyer Backs 'designated Judges'

Senior counsel Daniel Fung, who’s also a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, has defended the need for designated judges to oversee national security trials in Hong Kong, saying these cases are simply different from others.

Speaking at a national security forum, the former solicitor general said it is “reasonable” for special judges to be chosen to sit on those trials as national security is a matter beyond the jurisdiction of the SAR government and needs to be tackled very carefully.

Fung said the chief executive made the appointments after consulting the chief justice and the Judicial Officers Recommendation Commission, and believes the right people have been picked.

The pro-Beijing counsel’s comment comes as media reports say Indian-born Bina Chainrai – the principal magistrate of Eastern Court – was not included on the list because of her nationality. Six magistrates were named by Carrie Lam as designated judges.

Foreign judges are not expressly forbidden in the new law to oversee such cases, and the chief justice had said judges would be appointed on merit.

But legal sector lawmaker Dennis Kwok warned that if there is indeed a de-facto ban on foreign judges, it's going to become a big problem when the Court of Final Appeal gets involved.

“Out of the permanent judges sitting on the Court of Final Appeal, at least two have foreign passports. But in order to constitute a full court of the CFA, you need all of them sitting there,” he said.

“If you exclude two of them, are you saying that the CFA, as constituted now, would not be allowed to hear national security cases? If that’s the case, then you are effectively taking away the final adjudication that the CFA currently has in relation to all cases arising from Hong Kong,” Kwok added.