The composition of the Law Society’s 20-member council has come under scrutiny in recent years as it has a bearing on how vocal the influential body can be on a raft of legal and political issues.

They will be competing for seats against, among others, four rivals who are perceived as being more liberal, although they have denied any link to politics.

The winners in last year’s election were four of five candidates in a team that vowed to press for a more outspoken Law Society. Their agenda included holding the police force accountable for what they called “problematic incidents” during the social unrest of 2019 – a key demand of the anti-government protest movement.

Lam pointed to an earlier government decision to cut ties with the city’s biggest educators’ group, the PTU, which last week announced it was disbanding after coming under attack by Beijing through state media for its pro-opposition politics.

The chief executive acknowledged Hong Kong had a diverse bunch of civil and student bodies, as well as professional groups, but insisted they should abide by the law and not deviate from their intended goals.

“If we know that these groups have deviated from their goals – for example, a professional body … putting politics before professionalism – the only thing the Hong Kong government can do is to cut ties with them,” Lam said.

Formed in 1907, the Law Society regulates the conduct of lawyers and law firms with the power granted under the Legal Practitioners Ordinance. It also sits on a raft of bodies, including one responsible for recruiting judges, and another that handles legal aid policy.

Lam suggested cutting ties with the Law Society would have a greater impact than ostracising the teachers’ union, given its influence over the appointment of judges and the granting of legal aid.

A society spokesman said the group maintained the highest professional standards.

“As a bridge between the solicitors’ profession and the [government], the Law Society has remained politically neutral,” he said. “We are in constant communication with relevant governmental departments, expressing opinions to improve the practice environment and regularly respond, from the legal perspective, to consultations on different issues.”

Over the weekend, Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily ran a commentary warning Law Society members to stay out of politics and urging the group to use the election result to demonstrate its difference from the Bar Association, which has been more outspoken about political issues at the cost of upsetting the local and central governments. The newspaper called the barristers’ body a “running rat”.

Two members of the Bar Association’s council have left over the past two months, although the Post has learned that at least one of the seats was automatically vacated because a member had failed to attend meetings frequently enough. The case was attributed to personal reasons “unrelated to external” factors, a source said.

Political scientist Ivan Choy Chi-keung, from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said Lam was essentially reiterating the state media warning, which suggested that Beijing might already have given up on the Bar Association.

“So it is trying to keep its influence on one of the two legal bodies,” Choy said.

Political commentator Lau Siu-kai, from the Beijing-based Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macau Studies, said Lam’s warning was likely to have been triggered by the coming election.

“There is a chance that it may be turned into a political organisation that stirs chaos in Hong Kong and Beijing is trying to warn them before it happens,” he said.

Authorities were unlikely to cut ties with the Law Society immediately, even if the four perceived liberal candidates were elected, Lau said, as it would all depend on their following actions.

Solicitor Jonathan Ross, one of the candidates in question, maintained that he and his colleagues were “moderates”.

“I have complete confidence that there would not be consequences for the Law Society and it would not be seen as a political body even if all of us won,” Ross said.

Henry Wheare, another candidate, said the government’s concerns made no sense. “I would expect many members to be angered by the charges of politicisation and see them for what they are. As a serious and committed lawyer with no political agenda, I see this more as a distraction than as a real threat,” he said.

In a joint statement issued Wednesday morning, the other five candidates – Jimmy Chan Kwok-ho, Tom Fu Ka-min, Justin Yuen Hoi-ying, Ronald Sum Kwan-ngai and Careen Wong Hau-yan – said that a “self-regulatory function that [is] consistent with the genuine needs of the profession and balanced against its duty towards society is beneficial not only to the members of the solicitors profession but to the society of Hong Kong as a whole”.

At her weekly press conference, Lam also hit out at foreign media and politicians for painting the recent disbandment of the Civil Human Rights Front, the city’s most prominent protest organiser, as evidence of deteriorating freedom in Hong Kong.

“For those politicians and press to associate this kind of incident with suppression of freedom, this is extremely biased,” she said. “Hong Kong’s government will not accept those suggestions.”

“In the past two years or so, after the ‘black violence’ and national security law, Hong Kong has learned a profound lesson,” the chief executive said.