More than half of senior judges should not sit on the Bench because they cannot read Chinese, a senior lawyer said yesterday.
Barrister Derry Wong Hak-ming accused judicial and legal chiefs of 'telling half-truths' and sweeping sensitive language policy issues under the carpet.
Mr Wong, Associate Professor of Law at City University, claimed the Government was ignoring problems in translating the mountain of case law.
He called on new statutes to be drafted in Chinese first instead of English.
'An English speaker who does not speak Chinese should not be permitted to be a judge. As a matter of honesty and necessity, he or she has to speak both languages,' Professor Wong said.
'That's very threatening to many people who do not speak Chinese and occupy important positions. But it's a real problem and somebody has to be honest about it.' He said about half the judges in the Court of First Instance and more than half in the courts of appeal and final appeal could not read Chinese characters.
'The impression is if you do not speak Chinese, it really does not matter. But that is not legally correct because the law says both versions are authoritative.