Hong Kong barrister Peter Nguyen remembered for generosity, fairness and seriousness in matters of justice
- As Hong Kong’s first chief prosecutor of Chinese descent, Nguyen helped ensure a smooth transition of the city’s justice system during handover
- Friends and colleagues remember him as a friendly and gentle companion, as well as a polite judge
Prominent barrister Peter Nguyen, who helped ensure the smooth transition of Hong Kong’s justice system during the handover to Chinese rule, and later became a judge overseeing one of the city’s most gruesome murder cases, died on Tuesday. He was 77.
Nguyen was found unconscious in his Pok Fu Lam home in the morning, said a source close to the former High Court judge. He was rushed to Queen Mary Hospital, where he was declared dead. He is survived by his wife Cindy and son Patrick.
Born in Vietnam in 1943, Nguyen, ethnically Chinese, moved to Hong Kong at the age of five. In the then British colony, he found success in the law profession, spending most of his career as a defence counsel.
But in 1994, he took up the post of director of public prosecutions, the first Chinese person to hold the position, during which his coolheadedness helped the Legal Department’s criminal arm navigate through a world of uncertainties during Hong Kong’s handover, his friends recalled.
He resigned from the Legal Department, now the Department of Justice, two weeks before the handover in 1997, saying he intended to return to a career as a private barrister.