Jimmy Lai asks Hong Kong court to intervene after government rules allowing UK lawyer on defence team would likely undermine national security
- High Court filing reveals national security committee had concluded that allowing Timothy Owen to defend Lai would likely constitute risk to national security
- Lai’s lawyers argue finding is unlawful and usurps court’s role as gatekeeper against abuse of power
Tuesday’s High Court filing revealed the city’s Committee for Safeguarding National Security had earlier concluded that allowing Timothy Owen to defend Lai would likely constitute a risk “contrary to the interests of national security”.
Director of Immigration Au Ka-wang, one of the committee’s members, said in an affidavit the body decided on January 11 it would advise the Immigration Department to refuse any application by Owen for an extension to his working visa if he sought to join Lai’s legal team.
Au said the committee’s decision was “final, binding and not subject to judicial review”.
Lai’s lawyers on Tuesday asked the court to rule the committee’s findings were unlawful, arguing it had usurped the court’s role as a gatekeeper against abuse of power.
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They contended the committee’s duties and functions were confined to matters of general policy and the practical coordination of “major works and significant operations”, a phrase contained in the Beijing-imposed law.
The question of whether overseas lawyers not qualified to practise generally in Hong Kong could represent a defendant at a national security trial was specific to each case and should be determined by the court, they argued.
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Lai, founder of the now-defunct Apple Daily newspaper, will stand trial in September on charges of sedition and conspiracy to collude with foreign forces before three judges approved by the chief executive to hear the case.
The High Court’s chief judge approved Owen’s participation in Lai’s case in October, a decision upheld by the Court of Appeal and the Court of Final Appeal, triggering Beijing’s involvement.
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The National People’s Congress Standing Committee, Beijing’s top legislative body, ruled that Hong Kong’s leader John Lee Ka-chiu and the national security committee, which he chaired, were entitled to “make relevant judgments and decisions” on the involvement of overseas lawyers in national security proceedings. The interpretation is binding on the city’s courts.
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But its decision on Owen’s involvement in Lai’s case was kept under wraps until Director Au’s affidavit filed on March 20 in response to a separate legal application, in which the tycoon asked the court to declare the interpretation had no retrospective effect on the British counsel’s fitness to represent him at his trial.
When Lai’s lawyers wrote on January 16 asking justice minister Paul Lam Ting-kwok, another member of the committee, to clarify the effect of the interpretation on Owen’s representation, the latter said the request was an attempt to extract legal advice from the government and urged them to advise Owen on “lawfully taking up work in Hong Kong as counsel”.
Owen was already permitted to appear in an unrelated criminal case in the city when Lai engaged his services last summer.
