First Person: Mark Daly
For the past 16 years, human rights lawyer Mark Daly has been fighting to defend the rights of the minorities in Hong Kong. He has recently been at the center of a media storm for seeking a judicial review of the law that bars foreign domestic workers from attaining permanent residency in the city. Daly tells Grace Tsoi about hate emails, social justice and his thoughts on Regina Ip.
In 2006, we started helping domestic helpers. It was all done for free, because we believe that important cases deserve legal representation. People can’t [all] afford to have lawyers. I don’t think people’s rights should depend on pro bono free legal assistance, but that’s still the system that we have.
We don’t take cases that don’t have a good chance of success. Obviously, as you can see from the media uproar, it is significant in a lot of ways. It is a test to our legal system and the protection of rights generally.
We have a long way to go in human rights and discrimination. Unfortunately, the case is bringing out a lot of people’s prejudices.
Court cases can highlight human rights problems and it can educate people on these issues. Hopefully, the Basic Law will mean something. We will see how it plays out.
We get some hate email. I am also a member of the Civic Party, and there’s been allegations that—I don’t even know how they make the link—there is a political agenda. I am not going to spend too much time on it. I am a very inactive member of the Civic Party—I never attended a meeting.
I am hopeful [that when people] know what is really going on, they won’t be thinking in that way [that the influx of foreign domestic workers would be a burden on the welfare system]. It is irresponsible for people in higher positions, who should know better, to whip up a public frenzy here for their own reasons.