The magistrate criticised for delivering a verdict in secret admitted yesterday he blundered.
The Judiciary also decided magistrate James Lee Chung-yin had made an error.
'A spokesman . . . has admitted the magistrate erred in failing to deliver the verdict in court,' a Judiciary statement said.
Mr Lee had excluded the press and public from a hearing in Eastern Court on Monday after a 13-year-old girl, giving details of an alleged sexual incident, said she found it difficult to give evidence with so many people in court.
But after the evidence, the press and public were still not present when Mr Lee read out his verdict - a move described as 'unsatisfactory' by one academic, who said justice was jeopardised if they were given in secret.
Later, when it became clear that the verdict had not been given in open court, a reporter passed a note to Mr Lee asking under what ordinance he had been able to deliver a verdict in secret.
He replied that as court reporters they ought to know the law.