Hong Kong court rejects ‘Long Hair’ Leung Kwok-hung’s bid for final appeal over having trademark locks cut in jail
- Incident took place in 2014 when Leung was jailed after storming political forum
A former Hong Kong pro-democracy lawmaker best known for his trademark long hair failed to win the court’s blessing on Tuesday in his bid to lodge a final appeal against the public prison operator for cutting his locks in jail.
The Court of Appeal refused to allow “Long Hair” Leung Kwok-hung to take his case to the Court of Final Appeal. The lower appellate court had previously ruled against Leung – and in favour of the Correctional Service Department – in the first appeal lodged by the latter.
Despite this setback, Leung can still go directly to the Court of Final Appeal to ask for permission to lodge his case, which could affect a long-established aspect of male prisoners’ rights.
In turning down Leung’s application, the Court of Appeal on Tuesday ruled that while the outcome of this bid might be far-reaching – affecting about 8,000 prisoners in Hong Kong’s 29 detention facilities – the issue in question, however, was not as important as it appeared to be.
“The distinction in male and female haircut restrictions do not have so great an impact on the inmates so as to give rise to questions of great general or public importance per se,” appeal court vice-president Mr Justice Johnson Lam Man-hon wrote in a judgment on behalf of fellow appeal judges Jeremy Poon Shiu-chor and Aarif Barma.