Hong Kong protests: magistrate committed ‘serious error’ by sending man guilty of assaulting officer to psychiatric centre, High Court judges find
- Panel of three High Court judges investigating Magistrate Debbie Ng concludes former teacher was detained in facility without any objective basis
- But decision to send Yeung Pok-man to Siu Lam Psychiatric Centre did not amount to misconduct, they say
A Hong Kong magistrate will be “strongly advised” to reflect on her handling of cases after she committed “a serious error” by detaining a former teacher found guilty of assaulting a police officer during the 2019 protests in a psychiatric hospital ahead of sentencing, the judiciary has revealed.
A panel of three High Court judges investigating Magistrate Debbie Ng Chung-yee concluded she misused her judicial powers by sending Yeung Pok-man to the Siu Lam Psychiatric Centre without any objective basis to show he was mentally unstable or incapacitated. But her actions did not amount to misconduct as Ng had not deliberately abused her position or acted maliciously, they said.
The inquiry finding was one of three the judiciary announced on its website on Tuesday in relation to a large number of similar complaints against judges’ conduct during proceedings stemming from the unrest.
Ng found Yeung guilty of kicking Sergeant Chung Wang-yip when the officer pulled him over at an elevated roundabout in Sheung Shui during a citywide strike on November 11, 2019. Yeung had denied the assault. He said police had attacked him and nearly thrown him off the bridge after he was subdued.
Following his conviction, the former teacher and beach volleyball player was sent to Siu Lam Psychiatric Centre for a pre-sentencing assessment by Ng, who questioned whether any “latent defects” or “hidden” psychological problems were behind his “insane behaviour” in the witness box.
Yeung spent six days in hospital before winning bail in the High Court. Madam Justice Maggie Poon Man-kay explained at the time that Ng’s decision to call for assessment reports could appear in the eyes of the public as a pretext to strip the defendant of his freedom.
The three-judge panel, comprising justices Thomas Au Hing-cheung, Wilson Chan Ka-shun and Alex Lee Wan-tang, found that Ng had been “led astray by her persistent but erroneous view” that the “ridiculous” defence advanced by Yeung must point to an underlying mental issue.
“The panel of judges considers that … it was plainly a wrongful exercise of her judicial power and must have caused considerable stress to the defendant,” the judiciary said in its statement on Tuesday. “This decision fell short of the high standard expected of her for discharging the important function of sentencing in committing the serious error.”
The panel recommended the chief magistrate to “strongly advise” Ng to “reflect on her handling of the case so as to avoid committing errors of a similar nature in the future”.
Hong Kong teacher who assaulted police officer jailed after losing appeal
Separately, two other magistrates were cleared of misconduct over their handling of protest-related trials.
In one case, Magistrate Cheang Kei-hong was accused of bias against a student after convicting him of assaulting a mainland Chinese pupil during a chaotic forum at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in November 2019, by closing off sentencing options other than jail at a premature stage.
Magistrate Veronica Heung Shuk-han, meanwhile, was criticised for allegedly losing her temper during a trial when she interacted with lawyers representing a driver, who she later found guilty of assaulting a police officer during a demonstration in Central in January 2020.
The inquiries concluded Cheang did not act outside his judicial power when he jailed the defendant, even though the sentence was subsequently quashed following a successful appeal. Audio recordings also showed Heung had displayed no signs of impatience with the defence counsel throughout the trial she oversaw, and her conduct was in no way inappropriate.
The conclusions of the three inquiries were endorsed by Chief Justice Andrew Cheung Kui-nung and a nine-member advisory committee, which included four non-judges.
