The legal system “seems to place a much higher value on its own time than on that of other people – as those unfortunate defendants in their third year of pre-trial custody have found,” writes Tim Hamlett.
That means that after each witness has been taken through the expected stuff by the side which called him, the lawyer for the other lot can ask questions designed to highlight inaccuracies or inconsistencies. This rarely leads to the complete collapse of a case, but is still an important safeguard.
However it seems that in at least one Hong Kong court this part of the procedure is now regarded merely as a time-wasting piece of grit in the wheels of justice.
This brings us to the West Kowloon Magistracy, where eight defendants accused of rioting appeared before District Judge Kathie Cheung. They were all convicted.
Passing sentence, Judge Cheung said that the sentencing of rioting charges should be based on the overall incident rather than anything the defendants personally had been proven to have done. This seems rather strange to me, but the law often seems strange to lay people so we will let that pass.
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