The Hong Kong government has come under renewed and heightened criticism from the judiciary concerning its policy of destroying documents that may prove to be politically embarrassing.
Since almost all people, at some point, have to deal with a government department, the lack of a clear policy for preserving or destroying documents can affect everyone.
In 2007, Justice Michael Hartmann, hearing a judicial review of the government's decision not to allow four Falun Gong members to enter Hong Kong in 2003, was startled to learn that no papers on the case could be located. In his judgment, he said: 'The reasonable man on the street would probably have difficulty accepting that [the] government would have destroyed all of its records [on] why some 80 people were refused entry to Hong Kong.'
Hartmann nonetheless ruled against the applicants, rejecting the contention that they had been 'denied permission to enter Hong Kong solely or substantially because of their religious or spiritual beliefs'.
The case then went to the Court of Appeal and, two years later, Chief Judge Geoffrey Ma Tao-li, in his judgment, also found it 'incredible that nowhere in the whole of government would there be a written record of this'. Justice Ma noted that the government 'in such proceedings is expected to, and usually does, discharge its duty of candour', referring to the legal principle of honesty and openness. In this case, however, he concluded: 'The duty of candour has been breached.' And he warned the government: 'It is not something of which the court would want to see a repetition in future.'
Ma ultimately reached the same conclusion as Hartmann, but said the judgment could have gone the other way if the applicants had, for example, made 'the necessary discovery applications or [applied] for cross- examination of various deponents'.
The court raised the question of the veracity of statements made by senior government officials, including the then acting secretary for security, Timothy Tong Hin-ming, who is now head of the Independent Commission Against Corruption.