Letters | Hong Kong courts must not become a weapon of state power

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A statue of Justice stands over the entrance to the Court of Final Appeal in Hong Kong’s Central district. Hong Kong’s rule of law and independent judiciary have made the city an attractive centre of global commerce. Photo: EPA-EFE

Published: 7:40am, 6 Jul 2020Updated: 7:40am, 6 Jul 2020

Your resident inky-fingered, sardonic recorder of the inanities of life in our fair city, Harry Harrison, has always made me smile and often laugh out loud. His work lightens the gloom each morning and provides much needed food for thought.

However, his best work, the cartoon on July 3, was one that raised no laughter at all. It provided ample material for consideration of the situation in which we now find ourselves.

The reasons we have arrived at this situation are now less important than the fact that the judiciary is in danger of being used as a weapon in the fight against those that the central and Hong Kong governments consider to be enemies of the state.

An independent judiciary cannot exist in the absence of a robust rule of law. A robust rule of law requires that all are subject to it, including those who exercise power and authority. A robust rule of law requires that those in such positions submit to public accounting and the requirement to justify their actions.

No frequent repetitions of the mantra that the world’s great corporations are attracted to Hong Kong because of its rule of law and its independent judiciary will stand against a determined effort to make that body merely another department in the fight against those designated as enemies by those in power.

No repetition of the mantra will stand against the undermining of the Basic Law, which specifically provides for those matters now so carelessly under attack.