Appeal judge says Hong Kong journalist convicted over using vehicle registry details for report may have made ‘honest mistake’
- Journalist may have believed she had legal right to use personal information on public government registry for TV report, judge says
- High Court reserves judgment in case of TV journalist Bao Choy for three months
The first journalist to be convicted of a breach of the rules over a search of a government vehicle registry may have made an “honest mistake” and believed she could use personal information in the public domain for a report, a Hong Kong High Court judge has said.
Mr Justice Alex Lee Wan-tang on Monday said Bao Choy Yuk-ling, who has appealed against her conviction last year for a breach of the Road Traffic Ordinance, appeared to have reason to believe she was entitled to use car ownership details for a report related to the 2019 social unrest, given a lack of action by the authorities against similar use of personal information until she was charged.
He was speaking after Derek Lau Tak-wai, senior assistant director of public prosecutions, called for a narrow interpretation of the law and asked the court to uphold Choy’s conviction on the grounds that her use of personal details went beyond what the commissioner for transport would have intended when the public registry was set up.
But Lee highlighted that it could be difficult to draw the line in some circumstances.
Magistrates’ Court found last April that Choy had lied to the Transport Department by ticking “traffic and transport-related matters” as her reason for asking for information from its online database when she intended to use the it for journalistic purposes.