Just Published: “The Constitutional Impact of the National Security Law Interpretation: A Preliminary Analysis”,

Bing Ling, Professor of Chinese Law, Sydney Law School writes

A shameless plug for my paper entitled “The Constitutional Impact of the National Security Law Interpretation: A Preliminary Analysis”, which was just published in Hong Kong Law Journal, vol. 53, part 1, pp. 355-74 (2023). A draft version of the paper is accessible on SSRN.

Since completion of the paper, a number of events have occurred that raised issues addressed in the paper. The 2023 Hong Kong Policy Act Report by the US State Department asserted that the NSL Interpretation “effectively empowers the Hong Kong executive branch to overturn or preempt judicial decisions related to national security”. The question of the legal limits on the power of the NSC was litigated in court in Lai Chee-ying v Secretary of Justice, [2023] HKCFI 1382. No doubt these issues will remain live and have ramifications on the post-NSL constitutional order of Hong Kong.

Comments and criticisms are all welcome.