A woman's fight to use pre-handover postage stamps featuring Queen Elizabeth has been returned to sender by an unimpressed judge.
Mr Justice Andrew Cheung Kui-nung yesterday dismissed as 'hopelessly late' an application for judicial review into the decision by the Postmaster-General to stop honouring such stamps on July 1, 1997.
The application was brought by Mong Kok merchant Cheung Mei-yin, who was upset that Hongkong Post would not accept stamps she had bought before the handover when she went to mail a letter at Sai Ying Pun post office on May 25.
In an application prepared by her solicitors, she said the decision to stop honouring the stamps was an infringement of her human rights under the Basic Law in that she had been deprived of property without compensation and been denied the right to use the stamps.
She also claimed the decision was illegal and outside the powers of the Postmaster-General.
Of those grounds, the judge said: 'All I need say is I am not impressed.'