Slow justice: former top Hong Kong prosecutor criticises delays in deciding whether cases should go to court
Grenville Cross, who was director of public prosecutions for 12 years, cites recent drawn-out investigation into former ICAC boss Timothy Tong Hin-ming
The recent case of former chief graft-buster Timothy Tong Hin-ming has turned the spotlight on the apparent rise in prosecutorial delays in Hong Kong, said former top prosecutor Grenville Cross.
He also said the government should make known any disciplinary action it might take against Tong, who now faces no criminal prosecution after investigations into his alleged lavish hospitality and expenses while heading the Independent Commission Against Corruption.
But the Department of Justice, responsible for advising the city’s law enforcers on prosecution matters, stressed that any decision to prosecute should not be made lightly.
Cross, who served as director of public prosecutions in Hong Kong for 12 years until 2009, did not question the conclusion or the correctness of procedures in the Timothy Tong case, but expressed concerns about the inexplicably long processing time.
“The allegations against Tong fell within a relatively narrow compass, and it should have been possible to have wrapped this case up within a far shorter time span,” he said. “If relatively straightforward cases such as this are taking almost three years to process, one shudders to think what is happening to the more complicated cases, such as the major frauds and those with multiple suspects.”
Cross noted that even very simple cases arising out of the Occupy pro-democracy movement in 2014 were taking many months to process, with magistrates and lawyers complaining about the delays.
In a previous article, Cross said the case of former chief executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen, who was finally charged with criminal misconduct after three years eight months, might have set a record for a lone suspect investigation.