A Hong Kong court yesterday dismissed an attempt by jailed pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai (黎智英) to challenge a decision by security officials to effectively bar his British lawyer from representing him in a landmark national security trial.
Lai’s legal team filed a judicial review after Hong Kong’s National Security Committee (NSC), which is headed by senior Hong Kong and Chinese officials, ruled that the admission of senior British barrister Timothy Owen could harm national security and advised Hong Kong authorities to reject his visa.
The use of foreign lawyers by prosecutors and defense has long been allowed in Hong Kong, in keeping with its rule of law traditions.
Photo: REUTERS
The rejection of Lai’s legal challenge comes after the Hong Kong legislature on Wednesday passed a bill giving the city’s leader the discretionary power to bar foreign lawyers from national security cases, after a similar ruling by China’s top legislative body in December last year.
High Court of Hong Kong Chief Judge Jeremy Poon (潘兆初), in dismissing Lai’s challenge, said Hong Kong courts had no authority over the National Security Committee.
Under Hong Kong’s National Security Law, imposed by China in 2020, the law “has not vested the ... courts with any jurisdiction over the work of the NSC,” Poon wrote in a judgement.
“The duties and functions of the NSC ... are matters well beyond the ... courts’ institutional capacity,” Poon said.
A lawyer for Lai, Robert Pang (彭耀鴻), had earlier argued that if the court could not step in when the NSC overstepped its power, Hong Kong was “saying goodbye to a huge chunk of our rule of law.”
“You cannot have a body which can simply say magic words [on] national security, and be able to be free from any challenge,” Pang said.
Beijing imposed the national security law on Hong Kong in 2020 after months of anti-government protests. The law punishes acts including subversion and collusion with foreign forces.
The 75-year-old Lai founded the pro-democracy Apple Daily newspaper, which was raided by police and shut down in 2021.
He was jailed for five years and nine months in December last year on a fraud charge, and faces four charges under the security law and a colonial-era sedition law that could see him jailed for life.
Lai has said he would plead not guilty. His trial is scheduled to begin in September.
More than 100 global media leaders this month signed a statement calling for Lai’s release. They included Nobel Prize laureates Dmitry Muratov and Maria Ressa, as well as the editors of the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Guardian.
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