HK’s wheels of justice

HKFP op-ed on the incredibly slow pace at which the legal system is dealing with people arrested five years ago…

According to the latest figures, of the 10,279 people arrested [following the 2019 protests], 2,974 had been or were being processed in September, leaving about 7,000 still awaiting a decision.

… the principle is that defendants are entitled – i.e. not allowed to hope for, but entitled – to a speedy trial unless there are good reasons for delay and the case is so important that a bad trial is better than no trial at all. Otherwise the remedy is, and should be, to drop the case altogether.

If the government cannot bring itself to stop the flow of cases and leave some pounds of flesh uncollected, then there really needs to be some serious thought about how we can stop the whole saga from running uncontrollably into the next decade.

Presumably, if any of these people were suspected of a serious crime, the cops, prosecutors and courts would have dealt with them by now. If this isn’t the case, the obvious thing to do with such a huge backlog is (as the article says) drop the whole lot. That this isn’t happening suggests that either: someone wants a years-long succession of prosecutions dating back to 2019 to maintain an atmosphere of fear among anyone thinking of protesting; or someone is terrified of being accused by higher powers of being soft on evil protesters if they scrap the cases.

(On a not-unrelated note, the Justice Secretary floats the idea of reforms to the jury system, after a panel found six people not guilty in the city’s first anti-terrorism trial in August.)

The Diplomat on Hong Kong’s NatSec campaign in international cyberspace… 

…there is no slowdown in sight regarding digital rights violations by the PRC or Hong Kong authorities. Just one day after the report was launched in Brussels, the media reported that PRC state-sponsored hackers are using legitimate VPNs to target a growing list of victim networks in the EU. This follows similar cyberattacks targeting the EU, including those by APT31, a Chinese state-affiliated organization, against more than 400 unique accounts connected to the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) in January 2021.

Additionally, the Hong Kong government proposed the Protection of Critical Infrastructure (Critical Computer System) Bill in July 2024. The bill is intended to protect Hong Kong’s critical infrastructure against cyberattacks, but has already been criticized for giving the “authorities overly broad powers that could threaten the integrity of service providers and rock confidence in the city’s digital economy.” U.S. companies have also pointed out that certain parts of the legislation could allow the Hong Kong government “unusual” access to their computer systems.

Meanwhile, RTHK comes up with the slightly subversive headline ‘Make future shoebox homes bigger’…

A community group has suggested that future housing units replacing subdivided homes should be larger than the minimum size proposed by the government.

In his Policy Address in October, Chief Executive John Lee outlined plans to eradicate substandard subdivided units and introduce “basic housing units”. The government said each unit must be no less than 8 square metres, or 86 square feet, and have an individual toilet and at least one window.

Sze Lai-shan, deputy director of the Society for Community Organisation (SoCo), said on Sunday officials should consider adding 5.5 square metres for each additional resident into the basic housing unit requirements, to ensure a suitable environment for families.

“If no one cares how many members are in 8 square metres, then it could be three or four people in 8 square metres …” Sze said.

Who thought up 86 sq ft as a suitable size for homes? What were they thinking?