Hong Kong Free Press reports
The group, which represents the city’s solicitors, also said the government’s proposals to handle the issue were not cost-effective and duplicated effort.
A group representing thousands of Hong Kong lawyers has said it would not support any “blanket ban” on overseas lawyers appearing in national security cases.
President of the Law Society Chan Chak-ming, in a letter to the Legislative Council’s Panel on Administration of Justice and Legal Services, said the admission of overseas counsel in such proceedings should be decided “on a case-by-case basis.”
We do not support a blanket ban of ad hoc admission of overseas lawyers in [national security] cases,” read the letter from the society, which regulates the city’s solicitors.
The debate arose when media tycoon Jimmy Lai sought to hire British King’s Counsel Timothy Owen for his national security trial.
Following four court rulings in favour of Lai and against the government, Chief Executive John Lee invited Beijing to intervene. The top decision-making body of China’s legislature, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, issued a legislative interpretation of the sweeping security law last December.
The decision stipulated that the city’s chief executive and a national security committee have the power to decide on the matter.
Lai, who has been remanded since December 2020, faces three national security charges punishable by life imprisonment – one count of collusion with foreign forces and two counts of conspiring to collude with foreign forces – and one charge under the colonial-era sedition law.
The trial against the former publisher of the now-closed Apple Daily pro-democracy newspaper will resume in September. The High Court is expected in May to hear an application from his legal team to halt the trial.
The national security law, enacted in June 2020, also criminalises subversion, secession, and terrorist acts, which were broadly defined to include disruption to transport and other infrastructure.
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Hong Kong Law Soc. opposes blanket ban on overseas lawyers in national security cases
