The ViewDoes Donald Tsang’s jailing put Hong Kong’s oligarchs on notice?
The downfall of the city’s former leader is either a necessary high point in Hong Kong’s jurisprudence, or the sign of its inevitable decline; it’s neither petty nor trivial
“Deservin’s got nothin’ to do with it,” Clint Eastwood said to Gene Hackman before he coldly dispensed cowboy justice in the classic Western Unforgiven.
Either you enforce the rule of law and governance in Hong Kong, or you don’t. There’s no middle ground.
The conviction and sentencing of Donald Tsang Yam-kuen either represents a necessary high point in Hong Kong’s reputation as a jurisdiction where law and order work under One Country Two Systems, or the sign of its inevitable decline.
The court judgement was predictably accompanied by laborious orgies of flagellation, wailing and gnashing of teeth, trying to overpower even the most indomitable case of logic and sensibility. Columnists and stalwart establishment types like Simon Murray label the case against Tsang as being based on “triviality and revenge.”
The Post’s columnist Jake Van Der Kamp casually dismissed the charges as being “petty.” Both represent a way of thinking that’s woefully out of touch with today’s conduct standards and what Hong Kong people demand from their leaders.
Unfortunately, fate and justice can be blind and cruel. A fishmonger isn’t being sent to jail for rigging scales, it’s a former Chief Executive for misconduct.