Chris Patten: Hong Kong’s use of public order legislation to restrict freedoms flouts UN obligations

A few months ago, it was suggested, mendaciously, that I had attacked judges in a case involving Joshua Wong Chi-fung and his colleagues. Now I am accused of attacking the judges in the case of Edward Leung Tin-kei and his sentencing for riot.

On the first occasion, I criticised an unwise political decision made, for whatever reason, by the Secretary for Justice to review sentences handed down by a magistrate. After an appeal court ruling, the case was eventually heard by the Court of Final Appeal. The top court reduced the sentences imposed by the Court of Appeal.

More recently, I criticised not the sentences imposed on Edward Leung (though many have understandably done so), but the existence and use in this case of the Public Order Ordinance, which is a direct contravention of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which the Hong Kong government is allegedly committed under the Basic Law.

The history is instructive. In 1967, the so-called Cultural Revolution riots led to over 50 deaths (including children, journalists and police officers) and several bombings. The then government pursued emergency public order legislation to cope with the violence, which was encouraged by the government of the People’s Republic of China and local United Front communist activists. There was of course an official inquiry.