Selina Cheng, chairperson of the Hong Kong Journalists Association (HKJA), has accused her ex-employer, The Wall Street Journal, of breaching the city’s laws protecting employees’ right to join union activities by firing her after she took on the union’s leadership role.
Selina Cheng, the chairperson of the Hong Kong Journalists Association, outside the Eastern Law Courts Building on February 13, 2025.
Cheng appeared in court on Thursday to initiate private prosecution proceedings against the US-based newspaper over her termination last July, after she was elected the head of the HKJA.
On the day she lost her job, Cheng – who covered China’s automobile and energy sectors for The Wall Street Journal, told reporters that her company said her leadership position at the journalists’ group would be “incompatible” with her job and that she did not have permission to take on the role.
When she was terminated, the chief editor of The Wall Street Journal’s foreign desk told her that her job was eliminated due to restructuring, Cheng said.
Senior counsel Nigel Kat, who represented Cheng, told the court on Thursday that the Department of Justice had requested an adjournment of the case by eight weeks to consider whether to intervene in the case.
Senior counsel Nigel Kat (centre) outside the Eastern Law Courts Building on February 13, 2025. Photo: Kyle Lam/HKFP.
Under the Prosecution Code, the Secretary for Justice is entitled to intervene in private prosecution cases. The justice chief can take over the proceedings or shut the case down.
Kat said he believed such an adjournment was “rather excessive” as the Department of Justice has already received documents relevant to the case. Cheng filed a complaint to the Labour Department in November, after which it consulted the Department of Justice on whether to prosecute The Wall Street Journal. But in December, the Department of Justice suggested the Labour Department not to, Kat said.
Barrister Kelvin Lai, representing the Wall Street Journal’s parent company Dow Jones, said an adjournment was necessary because while the “allegations on its face might appear to be quite brief,” they involve several people working for the company, some of whom are not in Hong Kong.
Public interest matter
When asked by magistrate Don So whether the matter was urgent, Kat said the case “mustn’t be allowed to go stale.”
Barrister Kelvin Lai, who is representing Dow Jones Company, outside the Eastern Law Courts Building on February 13, 2025. Photo: Kyle Lam/HKFP.
The case is in the public’s interest as it involves the actions of a large international corporation and should be handled quickly and appropriately, he told the court.
Kat also said that adjourning by eight weeks was a “rather long time for a straightforward summary offence of this nature.”
So adjourned the case to April 22.
Hong Kong’s Employment Ordinance protects the rights of employees to take part in trade unions. An employer who prevents an employee from trade union membership and activities, and who terminates the employment of an employee for exercising those rights, are liable to conviction.
Wall Street Journal Corporate Headquarters in New York. File photo: John Wisniewski, via Flickr CC2.0.
A spokesperson for The Wall Street Journal’s parent company, Dow Jones, told HKFP last year that it could confirm that personnel changes were made, but would not comment on specific individuals.
The spokesperson added that the paper “has been and continues to be a fierce and vocal advocate for press freedom in Hong Kong and around the world.”
City’s largest press union
The HKJA has met with increasing pressure from authorities over recent years.
Cheng was elected chairperson of the HKJA at the press union’s Annual General Meeting on June 22, with 100 votes in favour of her candidacy and two against it. A new Executive Committee was also elected at the meeting.
