I am not surprised by the angry reaction of some Western governments to the recent court result of the so-called “47 case” involving 47 defendants charged with conspiracy to subvert State power. Thirty-one defendants had earlier pleaded guilty, and on May 30, a three-judge panel of the High Court delivered its verdict in the trial of the remaining 16 defendants, with 14 convicted and two acquitted.
The best explanation for their angry reaction is the old Chinese saying, “Furious after being publicly shamed!” They are angry because they had spent so much time and resources on grooming many of these defendants as their proxies in Hong Kong, aiming to disrupt the special administrative region and turn it into a subversive base against China.
Most of these 47 defendants had indeed done a number of “good jobs”, such as continuous filibustering in the Legislative Council (LegCo) delaying many government initiatives, blocking the HKSAR government’s proposal to launch national education in schools, controlling the teachers’ union to breed anti-China mentality among young children, abusing the judicial review process to block the construction of the Hong Kong-Macao-Zhuhai Bridge, thus wasting billions of dollars due to delayed construction, attempting to stall the “joint immigration clearance arrangement” at the High Speed Rail terminal in West Kowloon, and so on.
Finally, they masterminded the “Occupy Central” movement in 2014, paralyzing the city’s central business district for 78 days, and worst of all, the 2019-20 “black-clad” insurrection featuring violence and anarchy, which almost succeeded in bringing down the Hong Kong Police Force and the HKSAR government.
The foreign consular representatives and media are well aware of the full facts of the case, having closely followed the open court trial. But the Western governments which attacked the verdict shamelessly ignored the logical reasoning for the verdict and distorted the facts in their responses, obviously attempting to mislead the world.
First, they emphasized that the defendants were convicted for merely engaging in the “primary elections”. The UK’s minister of state, Anne-Marie Trevelyan, claimed that these defendants were simply exercising “their right to freedom of speech, of assembly, and of political participation”. Nothing could be further from the truth. The truth is that there could not be an offense in Hong Kong for anyone engaging in a “primary election”, which is no different from any election law in a Western country.
The truth is that they were prosecuted for conspiring to subvert the HKSAR government. Those who wished to take part in the “primary” had to sign an undertaking that, in the event of their election as legislators, and if they succeeded in securing a majority in the LegCo, they would veto the annual budget irrespective of its merits.
I emphasize the words “irrespective of merits” because legislators have the right to veto the budget, but it must not conflict with their oath under the Basic Law to fully discharge their role as legislators, including endorsing the government budget. Their plot intended that, according to the Basic Law, if the budget was voted down twice by the legislature, the chief executive had to resign, and a new election would be called. Hence, they would succeed in bringing down any chief executive, paralyze the government, and wreak havoc and anarchy. It would also create a constitutional crisis and likely confrontation with the central authorities, imperiling the “one country, two systems” policy.
The court’s judgment made it clear that it would not convict anyone merely because they participated in the “primary elections” but only if they had the criminal intent to agree to this illegal plot. Hence, the court found two defendants not guilty because it was not satisfied beyond reasonable doubt of their intention (mens rea) in agreeing to this plot.
Second, they also chose to ignore the fact that there were 47 defendants in this case, and 31 had pleaded guilty before the start of the trial, including the mastermind of the plan, Benny Tai Yiu-ting, formerly an associate law professor at the University of Hong Kong. If they are actual “soldiers” to “protect democracy”, they should fight to the bitter end and be prepared to be “martyrs”.
They pleaded guilty simply because they were fully aware of the criminality of the “primary elections” plot and the overwhelming evidence against them. Under the circumstances, they had no chance of acquittal, hence they hoped to receive a discount on their potential imprisonment by pleading guilty. Of course, I would not rule out that some of them have now realized they had been misled by Tai. By pleading guilty and showing remorse, they should be given credit for this at the sentencing stage.
Third, they belabored the “Beijing-imposed” national security laws, ignoring the basic principle that any country’s national security law is the central government’s sole responsibility. So what is wrong with the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress passing the National Security Law for Hong Kong (NSL), which quickly put a halt to the 2019-20 insurrection and restored peace and order in the city? What they are genuinely concerned about is that their espionage activities in Hong Kong, which had been ongoing since 1997 due to the absence of any national security laws, had to stop abruptly for fear of exposure after the enactment of the NSL and the creation of a police enforcement unit on national security.
I suspect many of their intelligence agents have now retreated to their home countries. Otherwise they might face the same fate as the UK MI6 spy network which was exposed in Beijing recently. It should be pointed out that the existing charge of subversion is not unique to Hong Kong. The United States introduced the Sedition Act in 1918, which criminalized inciting or advocating the overthrow of the government by force or violence, with a maximum prison term of 20 years. Any criticism of the NSL by the West exposes its hypocrisy and double standards.
Fourth, they claimed that the judges were “handpicked by the chief executive”. The fact is that all these three judges joined the bar before 1997, hence they are trained in British common law jurisprudence. Indeed one of the judges, Justice Andrew Chan Hing-wai, received his law degree from the University of London and qualified as a barrister at Gray’s Inn. It should also be pointed out that the judges were not appointed from nowhere; they were nominated from within the existing pool of judges with a view to their perceived expertise. It is no different from the formation of a panel of judges hearing specific copyright cases. It should be pointed out that all judges in Hong Kong were appointed by the governor in the British era and, after the 1997 reunification, were appointed by the chief executive based on recommendations by the Judicial Officers Recommendation Commission. This case is no different.
Finally, it should be pointed out that this 118-day trial fully conforms with the British common law system, where the defendants are all fully represented by their selected lawyers and are given a chance to rebut any prosecution evidence and deliver their defense case. The 318-page explanation for the verdict is a testament to Hong Kong’s commitment to judicial independence and transparency.
Should the defense disagree, they can exercise their right to appeal to a higher court, up to the Court of Final Appeal. Indeed, one of the acquitted, Lawrence Lau Wai-Chung, a barrister, said after the verdict: “If there is any star in this case, this judgment should be the star. It shows the jurisprudence, reasoning, logic, and perspectives of our judges. Please study it. It is more important than any single individual in this case. It is part of our rule of law.”
The problem is that traditional Western media appear to be complicit with some Western governments’ blatant bias and fail to honor their professional ethics and report truthfully. One way to overcome this is to make best use of social media by creating convincing short videos for circulation on social media such as Facebook, Instagram, X, and TikTok.
Regrettably, the judges did not deliver their verdict live on television. That footage would have provided the most convincing soundbite to counter Western governments’ false statements. Let’s hope the judges will do so in their sentencing of the defendants.
The author is an honorary fellow of HKU Space and the Hong Kong Metropolitan University. He is also a council member of the Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macao Studies and a retired deputy commissioner of the Independent Commission Against Corruption.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.
