Hong Kong Court of Appeals calls for immediate review of laws and policies that discriminate against same-sex relationships
- Judges reduce jail term of sex offender who complained he received an excessive sentence for ‘consensual buggery with a minor’ because he was gay
- Successful appeal follows landmark court ruling in May, which finally abolished or revised sexual criminal offences that punished gay men
The Court of Appeal on Wednesday called for a “proper and effective” review of all laws and policies that discriminate against same-sex relationships in Hong Kong.
The court’s call emerged after three judges unanimously agreed to reduce the jail term of a sex offender who complained he had been given a manifestly excessive sentence for consensual buggery with a minor because he was gay.
Yeung Ho-nam, 28, was immediately released after the judges replaced his original jail term of 2½ years with a sentence of 10 months, which he had completed.
Yeung pleaded guilty last September to two counts of unlawful homosexual buggery with a man under the age of 16, admitting that he twice had consensual sex with a 14-year-old boy in 2017.
His successful appeal follows a landmark court ruling in May, which finally abolished or revised a catalogue of sexual criminal offences that punished gay men more severely than their heterosexual counterparts.
In the May ruling, Mr Justice Thomas Au Hing-cheung adopted the government’s proposal to bring the maximum sentence for having sex with a same-sex minor in line with that of unlawful sexual intercourse with a girl under 16, which is capped at five years.