The top court overturned the rulings of appeal judges in more than half the cases it considered last year, Judiciary statistics show.
There were 16 successful challenges in the Court of Final Appeal, against 13 which were dismissed. In 1998, there were nine successful appeals and 12 rejected. And in the first three months of this year, seven appeals were successful and six thrown out.
The high percentage of Court of Appeal decisions overturned has raised questions about the ability of the judges concerned. Professor Yash Ghai, from the University of Hong Kong, said it may be that the figures reflect on standards in the Court of Appeal. 'I am a little surprised by the figures. My impression was a large number of appeals had been successful, but I didn't think it was so high. I think it could be some indication of the quality of the bench.' Professor Ghai, an expert in the Basic Law, said: 'In my own area I would say the Court of Final Appeal has been more astute and provided better analysis of the law than in the Court of Appeal.' 'The Court of Appeal has a number of judges and some of them are not outstanding in any way. Others are pretty good. It depends what kind of bench was sitting at the time.' He said it may be that not all the successful cases were the result of the Court of Appeal getting it wrong. There were occasions when the top court had decided to disagree with principles established by the House of Lords in Britain. Those principles would have been binding on the Court of Appeal and only be departed from by the top court.
The political nature of some of the cases may also have contributed to the Court of Final Appeal disagreeing with the Court of Appeal. Professor Ghai said it should also be remembered that the judges of the Court of Final Appeal often refuse to hear cases which they consider inappropriate.
There were 43 cases which they declined to allow to proceed to a full hearing last year, the same number as in 1998. Bar Association Chairman Ronny Tong Ka-wah SC said it was too early to regard the figures as an indictment of standards in the Court of Appeal. But such an opinion may be formed if the trend continued over a long time, he said.
'Of course, there are difficult cases and people do get it wrong. No person is infallible. The fact we have a Court of Final Appeal to put it right speaks volumes about the integrity of our system.' The figures were referred to by Audrey Eu Yuet-mee SC in the Court of First Instance yesterday when applying for a British Queen's Counsel to be allowed to handle a case in Hong Kong.