HONG KONG: Hong Kong’s top court on Monday (Aug 12) unanimously dismissed the bid to overturn the convictions of media tycoon Jimmy Lai and six other campaigners for an unauthorised assembly in 2019.
Lai, 76, the founder of the newspaper Apple Daily, and six others including veteran democrat Martin Lee had been found guilty of organising and participating in an unauthorised assembly in August 2019 during months-long protests in the China-ruled city.
While a lower court had overturned their conviction for organising the unauthorised assembly, but their conviction for taking part in an unauthorised procession was upheld.
Their appeal centred on whether the conviction was proportionate to fundamental human rights protections, a principle set down in two non-binding decisions of Britain’s Supreme Court known as “operational proportionality”.
David Neuberger, a former head of Britain’s Supreme Court, was one of the five judges on the Court of Final Appeal (CFA) who heard this case, adding to the debate over whether foreign judges should continue to sit on the city’s highest court amid a national security crackdown.
The judgment came two months after the resignations of two British judges from Hong Kong’s Court of Final Appeal (CFA), Lawrence Collins and Jonathan Sumption. Sumption said Hong Kong was becoming a totalitarian state and the city’s rule of law had been “profoundly compromised”.
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