The first volume of judiciary-authorised English translations of court judgments in Chinese will be made available today in what has been hailed as a 'new era in law reporting'.
The right to have cases heard and adjudicated in Chinese as well as English is enshrined in the Basic Law, although magistrates' courts and cases involving unrepresented litigants had sometimes been heard in Chinese before the handover.
A spokesman for the judiciary said the publication marked a new era in law reporting.
'It fills a missing part in our jurisprudence which was developed in the Chinese language through these judgments. It is a step forward in promoting a truly bilingual legal system in Hong Kong. It will be an important source of legal reference for judges, practitioners and academics,' the spokesman said.
Legal commentators welcomed the publication, but called for the translation of landmark constitutional judgments by the Court of Final Appeal, written in English, to be translated into Chinese for greater public accessibility.
While the judiciary began uploading important Chinese judgments and their English translations in August last year, this will be the first collection of judgments to be published as part of a series of law reports, entitled Hong Kong Chinese Law Reports and Translations.