Transition of judicial authority since 1997 has proved a seamless Hong Kong success

Next July, it will be 20 years since the Court of Final Appeal (CFA) superseded Britain’s Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JC) as our ultimate appellate body.

The number of practitioners who, before 1997, appeared with any regularity before the JC, at the Privy Council offices at 9 Downing Street in London, having successfully negotiated the formidable security gates protecting No 10, has, inevitably, dwindled. People sometimes ask how the CFA compares with its predecessor, and there are certainly similarities.

In 1997, I participated in a unique double. In June, representing the Crown (with John Reading), I conducted the last criminal case from Hong Kong to be heard by the JC, involving a senior police officer who wished to challenge his conviction for indecent assault. Had leave to appeal been granted, the case, under a transitional arrangement, would have gone to the CFA for adjudication, as its very first appeal.

In September, this time representing the Hong Kong SAR (with Patrick W.S. Cheung), I conducted the first criminal case to go before the CFA, involving a challenge to a common assault conviction. Although leave to appeal was denied in both cases, I cannot, alas, claim too much credit, having been called on to address their lordships on neither occasion.

In both places, counsel experience nerves while waiting for the appeal to start, which is no bad thing, as the adrenaline enhances performance. In the JC, both sets of counsel would wait in an oak-panelled antechamber, until the usher bellowed “counsel please”, whereupon, through their respective entrances, they hurriedly entered the chamber. Inside, the five law lords, in lounge suits, looking suitably grave, waited patiently, while counsel sorted themselves out.