Ruling offers clarity on sentences under national security law
- Judgment by Hong Kong’s top court upholding five-year term for student in secession case just one legal step forward on long road ahead
Beijing’s passing of a national security law for Hong Kong in 2020 was unprecedented. It raised questions about how the sweeping legislation would be interpreted and applied within the city’s common law legal system.
The judiciary is still resolving such issues, through its court rulings, three years on. This week’s decision by the Court of Final Appeal is only the second full national security appeal decided by the top court.
The ruling, concerning sentencing principles, is significant and will be applied in future cases.
Student Lui Sai-yu, now 26, was convicted of inciting secession. The judge at his trial settled on a sentence of 44 months’ jail, after giving him the usual one-third discount for his guilty plea.
But she ultimately imposed a five-year term instead, to comply with the minimum sentence required by the national security law. That approach was upheld by the Court of Appeal.
Lui’s lawyers argued, before the top court, that a sentence lower than the five-year minimum was permissible. But the judges unanimously agreed that submission was “untenable”. The national security law clearly states that five years is the minimum sentence for the offence, if it is “of a serious nature”.
This means the student only received a six-month reduction for his plea of guilty. This may leave him feeling hard done by.