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SCMP Reporter

I refer to your editorial of July 22 headlined, 'Milking the system'.

 It is not true that the court treated the former education boss Julian Leung and his wife Sophia Leung with undue leniency. Your remarks in that regard are unjust.

 I do not know the couple. I learned about their court cases from the news.

 Even though I have never met them, my heartfelt sympathy is with them.

 The couple did not gain any bonus when suspended sentences were imposed on them. Punishing an offender by way of a suspended sentence is never a soft option.

 It has always been regarded as a prison term. If a further offence were to be committed during the currency of the suspension, it would usually result in that sentence being served by the offender.

 An offender who receives a suspended sentence is not getting away scot-free.

 Further, a substantial restitution order was made by the court, which the couple must pay within the requisite period.

 Still further, Sophia Leung is yet to face the disciplinary hearing instituted by her employer and the Medical Council.

 There was extensive and incessant coverage by reporters during the couple's court appearances.

 Their worried and sad-looking faces were not to be missed by the television cameramen, who focused on them at every possible opportunity. The reports of their case in all its lurid detail appeared on the front page of almost all leading newspapers in Hong Kong.

 It is neither a good excuse nor an extenuating factor that they were driven to have committed these offences because of the inequality in terms, between local staff and expatriate staff, which was prevalent for much of the colonial era. However, the Private Housing Tenancy Scheme is not without flaws and is itself largely to blame for the commission of these offences since the rules did not deal explicitly with the case where a property is vested in a limited company, which is in law a quite separate legal entity from its individual shareholders.

 In this respect the convictions themselves are curious, to say the least; one hopes the Court of Appeal (should the Leungs appeal) has the opportunity to reconsider them.

 Under the rules, as long as the applicants certified that they or their families did not own or have financial interests in the property, they were eligible to apply under the scheme.

 There was no clear definition as to the meaning of the word 'ownership', where what was owned was not the property but shares in a limited company which in turn (being a quite distinct legal entity) itself owned the property. There were no express rules that staff would be prohibited from applying for a housing allowance if they had an interest in such a limited company which itself owned the property.

 This idea of setting up a limited company whether in Hong Kong or overseas was canvassed amongst university teaching staff; it was a hot topic. Overall, there was lack of guidance, clarity and consultation. Perhaps, the couple would never have got into trouble if their eligibility or otherwise were made a little clearer by their employers.

 At the Leungs' trial the judge said that 'the commission of these offences was a single fall from grace'.

 It must be recognised that the couple have made immense and valuable contributions to the community of Hong Kong in the past through endless hard work and self-sacrifice.

 It would have been wrong for the Leungs to have had to serve an immediate custodial sentence and it would have been a tremendous loss to society.

 ANITA MA Central 



Suspended sentence never a soft option