Hong Kong mask ban constitutional for all public meetings and processions, top court rules, backing use of colonial-era law
- Court of Final Appeal sides with government over use of emergency powers
- Mask ban was introduced during height of civil unrest in 2019
Siding with the government, the Court of Final Appeal went even further than a lower court ruling to find the law, previously deemed constitutional only when used at unlawful and unauthorised assemblies, to be applicable to all public meetings and processions.
Shortly after the release of the judgment, Kowloon City Court became the first to convict and sentence a protester for breaching the mask ban on Monday afternoon, sentencing a student to three months in jail for the offence.
The top court also found it was constitutionally sound for the government to invoke the colonial-era Emergency Regulations Ordinance to impose such a ban, on the grounds of public danger.
The five justices ruled unanimously that the ban was appropriate as it was in line with, and no more than, what the government required to deter peaceful protests from turning violent.
“The interests of Hong Kong as a whole should be taken into account since the rule of law itself was being undermined by the actions of masked lawbreakers who, with their identities concealed, were seemingly free to act with impunity,” they said in a 71-page judgment.