Legal Affairs EP12 | Grenville Cross explores four areas of legal reform for new govt

The sixth-term Chief Executive of Hong Kong John Lee Ka-chiu was sworn in on July 1, the same day when the new SAR administration officially took office. In this episode of Legal Affairs, we invited Grenville Cross, Senior Counsel and former Director of Public Prosecutions of the HKSAR, to discuss four areas of legal reform that the new government should look into.

The four areas include fake news, insult and abuse of enforcement officers, intimidation of judges, and child abuse.

On the need for legislation to regulate fake news in HK, Cross mentioned the 2019 social unrest, saying that apart from petrol bombs, another weapon widely used by the rioters was fake news, which caused unprecedented damage to social stability and public trust.

Fake news legislation will inevitably involve some restrictions on civil rights, which are in fact legitimate according to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), Cross pointed out. For reasons of national security, public health, etc., citizens do not have the absolute right to say or publish whatever they want.

In recent years, there have been many incidents of insulting and abusing public officials. Especially during the social unrest, HK police have been subjected to inhumane treatment during the social unrest. Cross said that while citizens enjoy their rights and freedoms, they cannot infringe on the rights or reputations of others.

Cross said, "No other citizen has to face this type of abuse in the course of their normal work, so why should the police?"