Hong Kong protests: prosecutors sought 17 sentencing reviews in 2020, marking fourfold increase, justice minister reveals

Hong Kong prosecutors last year sought to review sentencing in 17 cases – all but one related to the 2019 anti-government protests – marking a fourfold increase from the previous 12 months, the city’s justice minister has revealed.

Teresa Cheng Yeuk-wah also reminded lawyers of their “legal duty” to advise young offenders of the merits of their cases so more of them could be spared legal proceedings by admitting their offences upon arrest.

But lawyers hit out at what they called the Department of Justice’s “all-out” effort in going after the protesters charged over their roles in the social unrest, which had triggered what they called a “sentencing inflation” in the city.

Cheng on Tuesday wrote on her blog that the department had applied to review the sentencing of 17 cases in 2020, up from six and four such applications in 2018 and 2019 respectively.

She said the government had succeeded in reviewing sentencing in all 15 cases handled by the Court of Appeal since 2020. Such applications were made if the department found the sentence was “not authorised by law, is wrong in principle, or is manifestly excessive or manifestly inadequate”, she added.