Tam Yiu-chung, member of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, released an article titled “Judicial reform should keep abreast of the times” in Bauhinia Magazine last Friday. He claimed that “judicial independence does not refer to the independence of the judiciary from other branches of government; instead, it means the Court should be free from interference in its proceedings” and “any entity which exercises public power, including the judiciary, should accept social supervision and take social sentiments into account. He also put forward that the judiciary should “minimize the use of difficult and incomprehensible language and grandiose institution. If the above is accomplished, the legal system of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) will regain the support from and recognition by the public.”

As a member of the Basic Law Drafting Committee, Tam is witness to the formulation of the Basic Law in accordance with “the basic policies of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) regarding Hong Kong” as set out in the Sino-British Joint Declaration. The intent of the Basic Law is to reflect the principle of “One Country, Two Systems”, allowing Hong Kong people to run Hong Kong, a high degree of autonomy and the previous capitalist system and way of life to remain unchanged for 50 years. The grandiose institution which uses difficult and incomprehensible language, as described by Tam, is precisely the common law system which shall remain unchanged for 50 years.

Indeed, “unchanged” does not mean no reform. The author agrees that any system needs to “keep abreast of the times”. Therefore, common law countries and territories all have organizations similar to The Law Reform Commission of Hong Kong to promote legal reform.

As early as 1979, John Griffiths QC who just came on board as the Attorney General of Hong Kong, Yang Ti-liang, then Judge of the High Court and chairman of an informal law reform committee and the author all agreed that Hong Kong should establish an official legal reform mechanism, and the most urgent issue was to improve the procedures for taking statements from suspects in the course of investigation. At that time, almost all defendants of criminal cases reversed their statements in court, claiming that they had confessed to false charges under torture. We lost no time in recruiting representatives of the legal profession and relevant experts to conduct researches, and subsequently recommended audio-recording of police interrogations, but the Police rejected the recommendation.

As for the establishment of a law reform mechanism, Clifford submitted an opinion paper to the Executive Council jointly with Chief Justice Sir Denys Roberts very soon. The Law Reform Commission was established in January 1980 and commenced researches on confession statements in November 1981. A report was published in 1985, but the government still refused to adopt the recommendations. In 1988, the Law Reform Commission studied the powers of police officers and other public officers to arrest and suggested in the 1992 report that interrogations be audio recorded. The Police finally started to set up video interview rooms in 1993, and by 1998, all interviews were conducted with the use of video.

This shows that although legal reform takes time, the Law Reform Commission has been committed to fulfilling its roles and responsibilities over the years. If pro-Communists think that Hong Kong’s legal system needs to be reformed, why don’t they try work it through the established and effective channel? If Tam truly believes that " the Court should be free from interference in its proceedings”, why did he demand the judiciary to “seek the support from and approval of all factions of society on its own initiative”? Who represents “all factions of society”? Does “own initiative” mean that judges shall follow the official line when making a decision?

In fact, the implications of the so-called judicial reform have been stated in the White Paper as early as 2014: judges and senior government officials who govern Hong Kong should above all be patriotic. They must pledge loyalty to the country and accept the supervision of the central government. Recently, the rulings of judges have come under fierce attack and pressure from pro-Communists and CCP mouthpieces. Obviously, the CCP is “all factions of society”, and the purpose of judicial reform is to ensure that judges will come under the supervision of “society” and will decide a case according to CCP’s order “on their own initiatives”. A legal system which takes the feelings of “society” into account will once again be supported and recognized by the “public”.

A while ago, Geoffrey Ma, outgoing Chief Justice of the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal, talked about judicial reform and put it very straight forward, “It is certainly not a good starting point, or acceptable, to say, ‘I want reforms to ensure I always get the result which I want’.” But will the CCP agree with him?

(Martin Lee is a barrister and founder of Hong Kong’s Democratic Party.)

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