Hong Kong to ask Beijing to rule on foreign lawyers’ involvement in national security cases

HONG KONG - The Hong Kong government will ask China’s National People’s Congress Standing Committee to rule on whether foreign lawyers can be involved in national security cases, the city’s leader John Lee said on Monday.

The Chief Executive’s announcement came hours after Hong Kong’s top court ruled that a British lawyer can represent

pro-democracy tycoon Jimmy Lai

in a national security trial, rejecting an appeal by the government to bar foreign lawyers from such cases.

Lai is perhaps Hong Kong’s most prominent critic of China’s Communist Party leaders, including President Xi Jinping.

Hong Kong’s Department of Justice has made

repeated attempts to block British barrister Timothy Owen

from representing Lai.

The trial, set to start on Dec 1, is expected to last about 30 days.

At a hearing last Friday, a lawyer representing the government, Mr Rimsky Yuen, told the Court of Final Appeal that the government is seeking a “blanket ban” on foreign lawyers handling national security cases, except in exceptional circumstances.

Mr Yuen argued that cases involving such a “unique” piece of legislation as the national security law required someone familiar with the national security of China, and an overseas lawyer “would not be in a position” to do so.

But the panel of three judges – Chief Justice Andrew Cheung and Justices Roberto Ribeiro and Joseph Fok – in a written judgment criticised the Justice Department for “raising undefined and unsubstantiated issues said to involve national security which were not mentioned or explored in the courts below”.

“Accordingly, we dismiss the application,” they said.

Lai’s lawyer, Mr Robert Pang, had earlier defended Mr Owen’s role in the case. “It is precisely because we are at such a crossroads of the needs of national security and freedom of expression, the court needs as much assistance as it can get,” Mr Pang said.

Mr Owen’s application to represent Lai – who ran

the now shuttered pro-democracy Apple Daily newspaper

– had been approved by the Court of First Instance, and upheld by the Court of Appeal twice, following repeated appeals by the Justice Department and the city’s top legal official Paul Lam.

“There is no effective means to ensure that a counsel from overseas will not have a conflict of interest because of his nationality,” Mr Lee told reporters.

“And there is also no means to ensure he has not been coerced, compromised or in any way controlled by foreign governments, associations or persons.”

Pro-Beijing media outlets such as the Ta Kung Pao newspaper, and several pro-Beijing politicians have suggested that China’s top legal authority might need to overrule Hong Kong’s Court of Final Appeal if it backed Mr Owen.

Lai faces a maximum possible life sentence over two counts of conspiracy to commit collusion with foreign countries or external elements, and one count of collusion with foreign forces under the national security law.

He also faces a sedition charge linked to his Apple Daily newspaper that was forced to close in June 2020 after a police raid and a freeze on its assets. REUTERS