Provisional legislators did not expect yesterday's hearing with the Secretary for Justice to produce any clear answers. In the event they were not disappointed. The session was given over to little more than enlarging on legal generalities already outlined in Elsie Leung Oi-sie's original statement on the Hong Kong Standard fraud case. In spite of sub-judice considerations, if the questions had been a little more probing, some of the fog surrounding the decision not to prosecute all four people named in the conspiracy charges might have cleared.
It was the evasiveness of some of the responses which helped to support allegations that there was a difference of opinion between the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, and the Department of Justice over the case. It seemed apparent that there had been a divergence of views, though not enough to ask for a second opinion, as is usually the procedure when views are not unanimous. If that had been done, it might have gone some way to allay the suspicion that the decision had political overtones.
Public confidence in the rule of law is not likely to be restored by the session. As one of the last acts of the provisional legislature, it served only to show how much Hong Kong lost with the ousting of the elected body, a far more dogged, feisty and independent council, which would almost certainly have given the SAR's top law officers a much tougher grilling.
Although there were obvious constraints on both sides in this particular case, public anxiety is centred not on one conspiracy trial, but on the general direction that the judicial system seems to have taken of late.
There is just as much reason for concern about the decision not to prosecute Xinhua over its breach of the Privacy Ordinance. And there is greater need for the Department of Justice to outline precisely what constitutes a 'technical breach' of the law, as Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa described it.
If Miss Leung had been called on to justify that decision, there would have been nothing to prevent her from offering a full and frank explanation. When the conspiracy case comes to court, the public will be able to judge whether the decision was a fair one. Until then, the impartiality of the judicial system is itself on trial.