A Hong Kong magistrate has dismissed a case alleging misconduct by Civic Party lawmaker Dennis Kwok, who earlier this year presided over the contentious election of the chairman of the legislature’s house committee.

Acting Principal Magistrate Jason Wan wrote in his judgment last Friday that it was “baseless and vague” to say that Kwok was seeking to delay the election, or that he wanted to paralyze the operation of the Legislative Council.

The court should also refrain from interfering in the legislature unless there was concrete evidence to prove that Kwok had committed serious crimes, Wan added.

Kwok was accused of misconduct in public office in a rare private prosecution case brought by local businessman Frederick Wong. Wong’s lawyers argued that Kwok “stalled” the election of the house committee chairman during 14 meetings that he presided over between Oct. 15, 2019 and April 24 this year.

Kwok allowed lawmakers to bring up “irrelevant matters,” which contravened the legislature’s rules of procedure and house rules, Wong argued. The resulting delay led to the Legislative Council being paralyzed and bills being blocked, he said.

However, the magistrate said Wong failed to show the “irrelevant” parts of the meeting hosted by Kwok, and raised no examples to demonstrate how Kwok delayed the election, despite submitting 25 hours' worth of video footage and over 500 pages of transcripts.

“The applicant provided no evidence to objectively prove how much time was needed for the election of house committee chairman…without objective evidence, the court cannot determine whether it was reasonable that no chairman was elected during the 14 meetings that Kwok presided over,” Wan wrote.

Wan said Kwok “gave fair chances for lawmakers with different opinions to speak,” and that the duration and frequency of meetings was not something that was under Kwok’s sole control.

Citing precedents, the magistrate also said the courts were reluctant to interfere in the affairs of the legislature as there was a “high constitutional significance” placed on parliamentary privilege.

Earlier this year, the China Liaison Office and the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office issued harsh statements condemning Kwok and other opposition lawmakers, saying that they were deliberately paralyzing the legislature, and questioned their loyalty in upholding the Basic Law.

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