Out of touch, not fit for purpose: Hong Kong judiciary savaged ... by a former top judge and lawyer
- Henry Litton, a Hong Kong lawyer and judge since the 1960s, writes that former colleagues’ rulings are needlessly complex, and baffling for ordinary people
- In book, he says courts are inefficient and pander to lawyers, and asks if they will be ready for 2047, when 50 years of no change under Chinese rule run out
Is the Hong Kong Judiciary Sleepwalking to 2047?, by Henry Litton, Sherriff Books, 3 stars
Hong Kong’s judges have often come under attack in recent years amid the city’s sharp political divisions. The criticism has mostly come from supporters of one political group or another, unhappy their side has lost in court.
Henry Litton’s cutting critique of what he sees as the judiciary’s shortcomings is of a different nature. He is, after all, one of their own.
Litton has been a prominent lawyer and judge in Hong Kong since the 1960s. He sat as a permanent judge of the Court of Final Appeal for three years after Hong Kong’s return to China. Born in the city and fluent in Cantonese, Litton was famously rescued from the rubble of a deadly landslide in Mid-Levels in 1972, after being heard by firefighters singing the Beatles song When I’m 64.
Now in his 80s, he might have slipped quietly into retirement after stepping down from the bench in 2014. Instead, he has launched a campaign to curb what he regards as serious failings by the judges which could spell disaster for the future of Hong Kong’s legal system.
He first hit the headlines with a speech at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club in 2015 warning the judiciary was “sleepwalking” towards 2047, the year when dramatic changes to Hong Kong’s constitutional relationship with Beijing become possible.