A LAWYER for a Cheung Kong-backed company yesterday accused a judge of being unreasonable because of his refusal to accept 'a real danger of bias'.
Mutual Luck Investment Ltd wants Mr Justice Litton to step down as chairman of the Town Planning Appeal Board while it considers the company's bid to win planning permission for a housing project near the Mai Po Nature Reserve.
Mutual Luck, in which major property developer Cheung Kong has indirect controlling interest, claims it will not get a fair hearing if Mr Justice Litton presides over its bid, because the judge was on the board of governors for environmental pressure group Friends of the Earth from its incorporation in 1986 to November last year.
'I would say no reasonable chairman, being requested to stand down in the face of what is seen to be a real danger of bias, would refuse to do so,' said John Swaine QC, who was acting for the developers.
'It is not right for a litigant to go into a hearing with this cloud over the case,' he told the High Court.
Mr Swaine described Friends of the Earth as an 'aggressive pressure group' and said it had made its opposition to development on the Mai Po marshes clear.
The group has launched a campaign to persuade the Government to introduce a clear policy aimed at protecting the area, considered to be of great ecological and educational value.
