BREAKING: Hong Kong court rejects media tycoon Jimmy Lai’s bid to challenge nat. security committee decision
Hong Kong Free Press
Hong Kong’s Court of First Instance has rejected a bid by pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai to challenge a decision made by Hong Kong’s national security committee relating to the admission of an overseas lawyer for his trial.
Last month, the media mogul applied for permission to file a judicial review. The city’s national security committee had overstepped its powers by advising the immigration chief to reject any future visa applications for his overseas counsel Timothy Owen, Lai argued.
Judicial reviews examine the decision-making processes of administrative bodies. Issues under review must be shown to affect the wider public interest.
According to the security law, Hong Kong courts do not have jurisdiction over the national security committee’s work, High Court judge Jeremy Poon ruled in a written ruling handed down on Friday morning.
The judge wrote that only the central government had supervisory power over the national security committee.
“The HKSAR courts, as courts of a local administrative region, are not vested with any role or power over such matters of the [central government] because they clearly fall outside the courts’ constitutional competence assigned to them under the constitutional order of the HKSAR,” the ruling read.
Poon also ruled it was “self-evident” that the committee’s duties and functions were “matters well beyond” the city’s courts’ “institutional capacity.”
“The courts have neither the training nor expertise to deal with them in the exercise of their judicial function,” Poon wrote.
National security cases
Lai, 75, is being prosecuted under the Beijing-imposed national security law and the colonial-era sedition law. He has been remanded in custody since December 2020, and was sentenced to five years and nine months in prison for fraud case last December.
The media tycoon faces a total of four charges, including two counts of conspiracy to collude with foreign forces, one count of collusion with foreign forces, and one offence linked to allegedly seditious publications.
The collusion charge has since been left on court file, meaning that the prosecution can only proceed with the charge with permission from a judge.
The Apple Daily founder sought to hire British King’s Counsel Owen last year for his national security trial, with the Court of First Instance granting Owen’s admission last October.
The Court of Appeal and Court of Final Appeal then rejected three consecutive attempts by the government to bar Owen from the trial, which will resume in September this year.
The Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPCSC) passed a legislative interpretation on the security law last December, after Chief Executive John Lee invited Beijing to intervene following the top court defeat.
While the NPCSC decision did not rule directly as to whether overseas counsel unqualified to practise in Hong Kong could take part in national security cases, it confirmed the power of the chief executive to do so.
Hong Kong courts have to request a certificate from the chief executive to determine whether the participation of the foreign lawyer would involve, or harm, national security.
The Committee for Safeguarding National Security has to step in if courts fail to obtain the certificate, and decisions made by the committee cannot be challenged in courts, according to the legislative interpretation.
Following the NPCSC decision, the national security committee decided – in a private meeting – that Owen’s participation in Lai’s trial would harm national security interests. The committee also advised the director of immigration to reject any further visa applications from Owen for the case.
Senior Counsel Robert Pang, representing Lai, argued last month that the committee had overstepped its powers by advising the Immigration Department to refuse Owens’ future visa applications.
Pang also argued that Hong Kong courts had the power to, and should, step in when the committee had acted outside of its purview.
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