Hong Kong judge who found his forte as a colourful election watchdog

As head of Hong Kong’s election watchdog both before and after the handover, Woo Kwok-hing was for 13 years the government’s public face at polling time.

Yet when he started out on his legal career he did not seem a likely candidate to reach such prominence. Woo was educated at Ying Wah College in Hong Kong and Birmingham University in England.

When he started teaching it was at the privately run and financially squeezed Shue Yan College (now Shue Yan University), rather than the elitist University of Hong Kong.

He became a queen’s counsel in 1987 – 18 years after being called to the bar. And even after becoming a High Court judge later, he kept a low profile.

It was during his first major role in public service role that most Hong Kong people got to know him, and it was a role that allowed him to blossom. When he became chairman of the Electoral Affairs Commission in 1993, shortly after Chris Patten became Hong Kong’s last governor, it was arguably a golden era for elections in the city, as the outgoing British colonial government launched its political reforms, allowing the greatest degree of democracy in the city’s history.