Lawyers considering legal action over police's use of force on Occupy protesters

As more lawyers decry the force used by police against the democracy protesters, some say they have been studying if it's possible to take legal action.

More than 370 solicitors and international lawyers issued a statement yesterday condemning the use of force. Police on Sunday fired 87 tear gas canisters, used pepper spray and restrained protesters with batons. "Regardless of the technical legality or otherwise of such use of force by the police, their lack of self-restraint is an affront [to] the rule of law," they said.

The statement followed one by the Bar Association, which deplored the "excessive and disproportionate force" used on demonstrators in Admiralty. The Law Society has been silent.

Police actions have been defended by Chief Secretary Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor as reasonable.

Some of the signatories said they would help demonstrators file personal injury claims over the use of pepper spray and tear gas.

But solicitor and Democrat Albert Ho Chun-yan said such lawsuits would be difficult to win because the court might accept that the police had discretion to enforce the law.