The maximum punishment for national security crimes under a new law in Hong Kong could be life imprisonment, potentially with retroactive effect, according to a Hong Kong delegate to the National People’s Congress.

The Standing Committee of China’s top legislature is in the midst of a three-day meeting in Beijing, and the national security law tailor-made for Hong Kong may be passed on Tuesday, the last day of the session.

Ten Hong Kong delegates were invited to the meeting, which has been closely guarded by security.

Ip Kwok-him, a Hong Kong delegate, said the legislation would be written in the civil law format and would detail the four kinds of crimes involved and their respective punishments. Additionally, footnotes would be added to reference Hong Kong’s common law system. He said the law would be implemented immediately after it was passed, and the text would only be made public afterwards.

On the penalties facing those convicted under the new law, Ip said: “I believe the punishment may not be three years or 10 years in jail. National security laws overseas often have life imprisonment as the maximum sentence. I do not see why the punishment under [Hong Kong’s] national security law cannot be as serious as that.”

Asked if the law would be retroactive, Ip said he did not recall the law stating a retroactive effect but added that there was a clear deterrent: “If you violate the law after it is enacted, your behaviour in the past cannot be simply ignored. It means that if you break the law, whatever you have done in the past could be used as reference for criminal prosecution.”

Ip did not give a direct answer as to whether a jury would be present at trials for national security cases. He said the law states that the central government would have jurisdiction over national security cases under specific situations, but he refused to reveal further details.

According to sources cited by online news portal HK01, the new office of safeguarding national security in Hong Kong will be headed by a vice minister of public security, who would be half a rank lower than the city’s Liaison Office head.

Anita Yip, vice chair of the Hong Kong Bar Association, said that without first reading the text of the law, she was unable to judge whether life imprisonment for national security crimes would be too heavy a sentence. She stressed, however, that public consultations were necessary before enacting laws that carried life imprisonment as their maximum sentence.

Eric Cheung, a legal scholar at the University of Hong Kong, said even if the law stated the circumstances in which the central government would have jurisdiction in national security cases, it still presented a worrying threat to the city’s freedoms.

Click here for Chinese version.

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