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C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 HONG KONG 000334 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR EAP/CM; ALSO FOR DRL 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/23/2020 
TAGS: PHUM PGOV CH HK
SUBJECT: UPON THIS ROCK: HONG KONG RULE OF LAW REMAINS 
STRONG (PART II) 
 
REF: (A) HONG KONG 333 (B) 09 HONG KONG 1742 
 
Classified By: Acting Consul General Christopher Marut for reasons 1.4( 
b) and (d) 
 
¶1. (C) Summary: Thirteen years after Hong Kong's return to 
Chinese sovereignty, Hong Kong remains deeply enmeshed in the 
common law tradition.  Law is taught, and cases are still 
largely heard, in English.  Precedents from other common law 
jurisdictions, including the United States, are admissible in 
Hong Kong courts, while Hong Kong precedents are becoming the 
prevailing standard in some niche fields of law.  Reflecting 
the reverence in which law is held by the community, opinions 
by the profession on public policy issues are taken as more 
authoritative than those of political parties.  The 
profession has engaged the Mainland to an extent, with 
training and exchanges generating results among mid-level 
Mainland counterparts.  The profession has also raised PRC 
human rights cases of concern, but quietly.  End summary. 
 
¶2. (C)  This is the second of two cables analyzing the 
current state of Hong Kong's judicial and legal independence. 
 Part I evaluated the system's resistance to political 
pressure and external influence.  This report discusses Hong 
Kong's ability to produce new legal professionals, its links 
to the international common law community, the status of the 
profession in Hong Kong society, and the influence of Hong 
Kong's legal culture on the Mainland.  In preparing these 
reports, we spoke with: Court of Final Appeal (CFA) Permanent 
Justice Kemal Bokhary, Hong Kong University Law School Dean 
Johannes Chan Man-mun, Law Society (represents solicitors) 
President Wong Kwai-huen, and Bar Association (represents 
barristers) Chairman Russell Coleman SC.  We also spoke with 
Democratic Party founder Martin Lee Chu-ming SC, who ranks 
second on the Bar Association's seniority list. 
 
--------------------- 
Self-Nurturing System 
--------------------- 
 
¶3. (SBU) Hong Kong has three universities offering law 
degrees -- Chinese University (CUHK), City University, and 
the University of Hong Kong (HKU) -- of which CUHK is the 
newest and HKU is the most prestigious.  Bar Association 
Chairman Coleman concurred in Justice Bokhary's assessment 
that these schools were producing the quality of graduates 
required to maintain the current high standard of the 
profession.  Coleman admitted that, as the majority of new 
lawyers working in Hong Kong were locally trained, there 
might in the future be a concern about maintaining a 
profession with international standards.  At present, 
however, he believes even most locally-educated lawyers seek 
either educational or other "international" opportunities to 
round out their training. 
 
¶4. (SBU) HKU Law School Dean Chan told us that the mix of 
students enrolled in his programs reflects the same balance 
he has seen over the past few decades: about a third who see 
law practice as profitable employment, a third enrolled to 
satisfy parental fiat, and a third who actually hope to make 
some kind of difference in society.  Chan judged that law 
students were no more or less likely to be active politically 
than other students, although they did tend to perform 
volunteer service through legal clinics and similar social 
assistance activities. 
 
--------------------------- 
Common Law Community Member 
--------------------------- 
 
¶5. (U) While Article 90 of the Basic Law requires that the 
Chief Justice of the CFA and the Chief Judge of the High 
Court be Chinese national permanent residents of Hong Kong 
with no right of abode overseas (the same requirement as for 
the Chief Executive and cabinet rank officials), Article 92 
allows for expatriates from other common law jurisdictions to 
sit on the Hong Kong bench.  In addition to a number of 
judges still serving from prior to the handover, the Court of 
Final Appeal has reserved its fifth seat for a visiting judge 
from another common law jurisdiction, which for reasons of 
travel distance and language is usually Australia. 
 
¶6. (SBU) The primary language of law remains English.  In 
addition to the presence of expatriates in the profession and 
on the bench, the Department of Justice has a large number of 
expatriate staff: the Director of Public Prosecutions, the 
Solicitor General and the Law Draftsman are all expatriates. 
Legislation is drafted in the first instance in English, then 
translated into Chinese.  Legal education is also conducted 
in English, with a large number of foreign law professors at 
 
HONG KONG 00000334  002 OF 003 
 
 
the schools.  While Chinese is increasingly used in 
lower-level legal proceedings, CFA cases are all heard in 
English, with translation provided as needed.  Use of 
English, however, has come into conflict with the desire by 
some to expand trial by jury to the magistrate level 
(although cost and organizational factors also play a role). 
Initially, jury trials were limited to the higher courts 
because of the requirement that jurors be fluent in English, 
which limited the pool of available jurors. 
 
¶7. (C) Other than one instance -- in which a 1999 ruling by 
an expatriate (but long-time Hong Kong resident) High Court 
judge that flag burning constituted protected free speech 
occasioned some grumbling by pro-Beijing elements -- HKU Law 
School Dean Chan could not cite an instance in which a 
non-Chinese sitting on the bench had been a point of 
contention in Hong Kong.  When a July 2009 Hong Kong Journal 
article by Tsinghua University Law School Professor Cheng Jie 
ventured that the decision to allow expatriates to 
participate in Hong Kong governance "may have been a great 
mistake of the Basic Law," the reaction in Hong Kong centered 
most on whether Beijing intended this as a criticism of 
judicial independence. 
 
¶8. (U) Common law precedent from other jurisdictions is 
admissible in Hong Kong courts (and vice-versa).  Owing to 
the British heritage of Hong Kong's legal educational system 
and certain differences in how court decisions are drafted, 
U.S. precedents are cited less frequently, but have the same 
validity.  From the other side, Professor Chan told us Hong 
Kong precedents have become well-established in UK and 
Australian courts on issues such as "substantive legitimate 
expectation" (legitimate presumption of certain rights under 
the law) and the role of malice in defamation cases. 
 
¶9. (U) The most recent visible link between Hong Kong and the 
wider common law realm was Hong Kong's April 2009 hosting of 
the Commonwealth Law Conference, a distinction made more 
striking by the fact that Hong Kong is not a member of the 
Commonwealth.   The four-day conference, entitled "The 
Dynamics of Law in a Rapidly Changing World," saw CJ Li and 
his colleagues in Hong Kong's bench and bar exchange views 
with six Chief Justices (including England and Wales, 
Australia, Canada and Singapore) and numerous senior judges 
and practitioners. 
 
------------- 
Gospel of Law 
------------- 
 
¶10. (C) Assessments of public policy initiatives by the Law 
Society and the Bar Association, particularly on 
constitutional reform and Article 23 national security 
legislation, carry more weight than most others, given that 
they are seen as representing an objective evaluation against 
the impartial standard of law rather than partisan opinion. 
That such analyses have come down in favor of universal 
suffrage and against the government's draft Article 23 bill 
may lead the establishment to grind its teeth, but leave them 
little ground to rebut. 
 
¶11. (C) Indeed, what helped in large measure to build the 
electoral appeal of the Civic Party, which even today has 
almost no network at the grass-roots, was the esteem enjoyed 
by the senior barristers who founded the party.  The public 
seemed to believe that their expertise would be an important 
contribution to LegCo, particularly in "checking" the 
government.  Conversely, eyebrows were perhaps raised higher 
by the Civics' decision to ally themselves with the radical 
League of Social Democrats in the "resignation-as-referendum" 
plan. 
 
--------------------- 
Links to the Mainland 
--------------------- 
 
¶12. (C) Our interlocutors, as well as others familiar with 
the programs, tout Hong Kong's hosting of Mainland government 
lawyers and judges for educational and professional exchanges 
as making an important contribution to the development of 
rule of law in the PRC.  A Department of Justice program 
brings Mainland government legal professionals to Hong Kong 
for a special LL.M. program, followed by an internship with a 
Hong Kong government agency.  Another exchange program 
sponsored by the judiciary brings in Mainland judges.  The 
Bar Association's Coleman and HKU Law School Dean Chan were 
both quite impressed with the caliber of participants in the 
two programs.  While the visitors might toe the official line 
when speaking in class, the two felt the Mainlanders' 
questions demonstrated a high level of interest in Hong 
 
HONG KONG 00000334  003 OF 003 
 
 
Kong's legal system, reflecting their desire to improve the 
practice of law in the PRC. 
 
¶13. (C) HKU's Chan saw Mainland LL.B. (the basic 
undergraduate law degree offered by HKU) students, as well as 
older students pursuing LL.M. or other advanced legal 
degrees, more as a mixed bag.  HKU normally admits 7-10 
Mainland LL.B. students out of a pool of thousands of 
applicants; English language requirements probably weed out a 
great many aspirants.  Of these, while many see a Hong Kong 
legal education as a stepping stone to working "abroad" (in 
Hong Kong, or actually overseas), a few each year appear to 
Chan to be fired with enthusiasm to return and make a 
difference on the Mainland.  The LL.M. students have a 
similar breakdown in motivations. 
 
---------------------- 
In the Name of the Law 
---------------------- 
 
¶14. (C) Individual Hong Kong lawyers are active on China 
human rights issues, like Democratic Party Chairman (and 
solicitor) Albert Ho Chun-yan's chairmanship of the China 
Human Rights Lawyers' Concern Group.  However, the Law 
Society and the Bar Association have, as institutions, 
maintained a certain distance in deference to "one country, 
two systems."  That said, Law Society President Wong told us 
that, stemming from his own concern and that of his 
colleagues, he had raised the cases of Li Zhuang (a Beijing 
lawyer accused of telling his client to commit perjury in a 
Chongqing trial) and the "Gong Meng" NGO (which has faced 
charges of failing to pay taxes in Beijing, leading to its 
closure) with Mainland counterparts in the All-China Lawyers' 
Association.  While he told us his counterparts were 
sympathetic in both cases, they suggested any possible 
intervention by the PRC legal profession on "Gong Meng" was 
difficult owing to the fact that the issue was taxes (as 
opposed to legal work) and because "Gong Meng" was not 
officially a law firm, even though it provided legal advice. 
Wong said that his PRC counterparts told him they had raised 
Li Zhuang's case, informally but at high levels. 
MARUT