Hong Kong activist detained for inciting subversion of state wins judicial review to lift reporting restrictions on case

A barrister and activist detained for inciting subversion of state power in Hong Kong has won a judicial review to lift reporting restrictions on her case, with a judge ruling the magistrate in the previous proceedings had “exercised a discretion which did not exist”.

Handing down a written judgment on Tuesday, Judge Alex Lee Wan-tang from the Court of First Instance said he did not see how a media blackout served to protect prosecution witnesses in the case.

Chow Hang-tung, a former vice-chair of the now-disbanded Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, and two of the organisation’s former leaders, Lee Cheuk-yan and Albert Ho Chun-yan, are accused of inciting subversion. The trio are currently serving prison sentences for convictions relating to previous unauthorised assembly cases.

Lee’s ruling came two months after Chow, 36, sought to challenge Principal Magistrate Peter Law Tak-chuen’s refusal in May to lift reporting restrictions for committal proceedings in the case.

Lawyers for Chow argued their client’s right to choose publicity over privacy had been infringed by a lower court’s decision to maintain the statutory curbs on media coverage during the pretrial proceedings of her contentious prosecution.

Chow applied to West Kowloon Court in February to lift reporting restrictions on the case’s committal proceedings, which are open sessions in which administrative procedures are settled before a trial takes place.

The Magistrates Ordinance bans the press from reporting on committal proceedings, other than limited information such as the identities of the parties involved and decisions regarding case transfer.