Mr Justice Woo Kwok-hing is a senior judge with dual roles, one for the rule of law and one for the ballot box. But the appeal court judge says he has more fun presiding over Hong Kong elections than sitting on the bench.
The Legislative Council election on September 12 is widely seen as the most competitive battle to be staged in Hong Kong. With the ballots for the 49 contested seats just a week away, Mr Justice Woo is spending more time on polling matters inside his chamber at the High Court building.
Lying on the table are heaps of complaint files and daily news clippings. He insists on vetting all complaints handled by other Electoral Affairs Commission members to enhance consistency. For clippings involving candidates' negative campaigns, he merely glances through the headlines, not so much because he is not interested, but to maintain his impartiality. 'As a judge, I should not be reading too much. I should not be affected and form a view,' he says, bearing in mind that the controversies might end up in his files, should people lodge complaints later.
Appointed in 1993 to oversee the Beijing-opposed Legco elections designed by former governor Chris Patten, the British-trained lawyer and judge survived the handover and continued to run the first post-handover Legco election and other polls thereafter. No less than 10 territory-wide elections, including the chief executive's race, have been held under Mr Justice Woo's hammer.
His credentials go beyond the judiciary and elections. In 1996, he was assigned to investigate the Garley Building fire, in which about 40 people were killed. He also headed the fault-finding inquiry into the new airport opening chaos in 1998. Even the opposition Democratic Party privately concedes his chairmanship of the Electoral Affairs Commission is one of the few authorities that deserve respect and public trust.
Having spent more than 30 years in the legal sector, the 58-year-old judge says he finds only cases presented by top barristers challenging. 'I still find my election portfolio more stimulating,' he says. 'Sometimes things can be trivial and routine. But elections can be fascinating. You get complaints that you would never dream of.'
