No keeping politics out of court

The imposing colonial courtrooms at Western Magistracy have, over the years, played host to numerous cases of causing an obstruction in a public place. It is a routine offence, created decades ago, which is normally used to impose minor fines on errant street hawkers.

But yesterday, when Magistrate Symon Wong Yu-wing stepped into court No 2 to deliver his verdict in such a case, he found the old wooden benches packed to capacity. And among the onlookers were representatives from the United States, British and Canadian governments.

This, of course, was no normal obstruction case. This was the first trial in Hong Kong involving the Falun Gong movement, which has been banned on the mainland since 1999. It was also the first to test the extent to which the Basic Law protects the right to demonstrate.

There were 16 defendants, four of them Swiss nationals, who had been arrested during a demonstration outside the Beijing Liaison Office on March 14. As well as two obstruction charges, some were accused of assaulting police.

The trial, which lasted a staggering 26 working days and involved what the magistrate described as an 'enormous' amount of evidence, seemed to take on a significance beyond that of the relatively minor offences involved.

It was fought out in an intensely political climate.

Defence lawyers argued that persecution of the Falun Gong movement on the mainland had now apparently been extended to Hong Kong. This, they argued, had led not only to the arrest of the defendants during a peaceful demonstration, but had influenced the manner in which the prosecution conducted its case.