Opinion | Judges of national security cases exercise their judicial powers independently

Editor's Note: Dr Henry Ho, Founder and Chairman of One Country Two Systems Youth Forum made a speech at an online side event of the United Nations Human Rights Council on Hong Kong related issues held by the Permanent Mission of the People's Republic of China to the United Nations in Geneva on Thursday (July 1). Here is the full speech.

By Dr Henry Ho

The National Security Law has been enacted in Hong Kong for one year. Together with the newly introduced electoral reforms to be implemented later this year, the turmoil and the associated threat of national security due to the 2019 riots have finally come to an end.

Four months ago, I was speaking at the same occasion here at the side event in relation to the United Nations Human Rights Council meeting. I argued that rule of law and independence of the Judiciary remained unchanged under the National Security Law, as already suggested by the former Chief Justice Geoffrey Ma. Human rights were well protected and the restoration of law and order enabled HK people to return to their normal lives, free from violence, threat and bullying. Today these arguments still stand.

First of all, all judges of National Security Law are existing Hong Kong judges and according to Article 89 of the Basic Law, they may only be removed for inability to discharge their duties, or for misbehaviour. That means they could not be fired due to unpopular judgements. In the past year, we have seen all national security judges remain independent in the adjudication of cases. Take the example of bail application of defendents. While Article 42 of the law set a high threshold of bail, stating that no bail shall be granted to defendants unless the judge has sufficient grounds for believing that they will not continue to commit acts endangering national security, recently there have been cases for granting bail for some defendents by the judges. This illustrates the independence of our judges.

In the last week or so, western media were covering extensively the closure of Apple Daily and said it represented the infringement or even the demise of press freedom in Hong Kong. First of all, Hong Kong government had never ordered the closure of any media including Apple Daily. The HK police arrested several directors and chief editors of the newspaper for national security offences. Some assets of the company and associated businesses were frozen according to the law. The board of the newspaper decided to terminate the business last Thursday without any governmental interference at all.

But make no mistakes, Apple Daily was not, and has not been a proper and decent media in Hong Kong since its establishment in 1995. That's why many HK people were celebrating, not mourning its demise in the past week.

First, Apple Daily insulted women and promoted illegal behaviour including prostitution. As a tabloid, Apple Daily has gone far beyond the Sun in UK which carried naked women in its famous Page 3. In its early years of publication, Apple Daily included pages of experience sharing and even manuals for patronizing prostitutes. It was widely known that companies, schools or any decent organisations had to remove these indecent pages before displaying it at public areas.

Second, Apple Daily observes no moral boundaries nor bottom line when it comes to profit-making. It paid a man in Hong Kong to seek out prostitutes and pose for photographs after his wife murdered their children and committed suicide. The newspaper's making of fake news and "chequebook journalism" tarnished its reputation and credibility. This has indeed become a classic case of indecent journalism taught in local university courses.

Third, Apple Daily is the mass producer of fake news in Hong Kong. Fake news is a powerful weapon to incite people's hatred to both Hong Kong and Central Governments and achieved the purpose of endangering national security in 2019. There are numerous examples which western media would not forget. The broken-eye lady at the riot scene had proved not to be injured by police weapons. The so-called murder at the Prince Edward Underground station, or even the rape cases within police stations were all proved to be plain lies. Who has been propagating these fake news, which fuelled the violent riots in 2019, the answer is Apple Daily.

Fourth, Apple Daily is interfering with politics, even in the US. Since 2003, Apple Daily has been distributing protest banners for free along with its paper, attacking the government and leaders of both Mainland China and Hong Kong. Would any decent media in the West such as New York Times or Financial Times conduct these acts and jeopardizing their own integrity and independence?

Apple Daily was even deeply embroiled in US politics. In order to support Donald Trump's campaign, Mark Simon, the top aide of Jimmy Lai and a former CIA staff, paid for a report compiled under a fake persona, which was used to discredit Hunter Biden, the son of presidential candidate Joe Biden ahead of the election. This kind of smear tactics and campaigns look so familiar in Hong Kong, which plays such an important role in the quarter-century history of Apple Daily .

So we must ask, would any decent Western media such as Wall Street Journal or Time magazine condone such behaviour?

Therefore, it was no surprise to Hong Kong people that this paper, which called for foreign countries to launch harmful international sanctions against our country and our city, supporting Hong Kong independence, and becoming the lead fake news machine for political purposes, was accused of offences endangering national security in Hong Kong.

National Security Law has brought law and order, hope and confidence back to this Asia's world city. Our lawyers and judges are independent and professional. Our government, which respects rule of law and our common law tradition, would never exert pressure on any barristers to withdraw any cases, as in the case of British Foreign Minister Dominic Rabb. In January this year, Mr Rabb openly criticized Mr David Perry, a British QC to lead the prosecution of Jimmy Lai, who had to decline the job under tremendous pressure. Such governmental interference of a barrister's involvement in a court case is totally unacceptable in common law jurisdictions like Hong Kong.

Recently, Western countries including British government have been accusing China of violating Sino British Joint Declaration. Unfortunately they have never indicated which clause was violated. In fact, Chinese government has fulfilled all its obligations in 1997 and universal suffrage, as the final goal of our political system, was mentioned in the Basic Law, not the Joint Declaration.

Today is July 1 which has triple meaning for HK. Besides the anniversary of the National Security Law, it also marked the 24th anniversary of HK's reunification to the country and also the centenary celebration of the Communist Party of China. Hong Kong people are confident that despite all sorts of unsubstantiated accusations from some western countries, One Country Two Systems remain the best political arrangements for Hong Kong and also China, and it would continue to bring prosperity and stability to this city. Thank you.

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