Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam will sit on panel to hear banned pro-independence party appeal

Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor is set to dismiss the application by a co-founder of an outlawed pro-independence party requesting that she step aside when her de facto cabinet handles his appeal against his group’s ban, the Post has learned.

Hong Kong National Party’s leader Andy Chan Ho-tin has applied to ask Lam and eight of her Executive Council members to refrain from taking part in the review of the party’s ban because they had commented on the matter before the group was outlawed.

Chan, who made the application in his recent appeal against the ban imposed on September 24, said their participation would be procedurally unfair to the party. Chaired by Lam, the council is comprised of 16 official and 16 non-official members.

Without naming the party directly, Lam said in July that any advocacy of independence in the city “most certainly will face suppression” and said that separatists could face legal consequences when she was asked by the media about the possible ban.

And in August, Lam said that the government would “take action” in handling separatism if any law had been breached after the Foreign Correspondents’ Club hosted a talk by Chan that month.

A source said Lam would take part in the review, while Secretary for Security John Lee Ka-chiu, also an official member of Exco, would be excused from the meeting because he was the one who proposed the ban.

“Lam's case was different, her earlier remarks were only concerned about general policy and stance against independence,” the source said.

The Exco secretariat declined to comment.