Margaret Ng’s wonderful statement, made under enormous pressure, deserves the broadest distribution and will be a powerful indictment of the Communist application of law in Hong Kong. I don’t know whether the Judge’s reasoning in granting her, Martin Lee, and Albert Ho suspended sentences was in recognition of their distinguished careers dedicated to political freedom and the rule of law or whether it was on the ground of age, other factors, or a combination. There were also slight sentencing differences in each case. Martin, by far the oldest, drew a month less than others.
Margaret embodies the best combination of training in journalism initially, and then law and philosophy, followed by a lifetime of application of these skills in the political-legal trenches of Hong Kong warfare. She has been an invaluable player. My mind goes back to over forty years ago to the lunch we had when she asked whether it was wise to add the study of law to her repertoire. She would have been a force without it, but legal skills enhanced her capacity, as we witnessed today. Ironically, after the early Court of Final Appeal decision in the groundbreaking post-Handover Ng Ka Ling case, when she was given the relatively rare opportunity for foreigners to testify in Washington before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, I think I annoyed her by taking a different view of the wisdom of the CFA’s decision. But her arguments were well-made and persuaded many, I believe.
What now needs to be confirmed by experts in Hong Kong criminal justice is the set of restrictions under which people serve the term of their suspended sentence. What types of conduct can result in termination of suspension and imposition of imprisonment? Will Margaret, Martin, Albert and others continue to be free to fully express their views and to meet anyone they wish to? I assume this is a question of traditional Hong Kong law, since these prosecutions were not brought – they could not be because the events occurred in 2019 – under the National Security Law. Yet, we have seen that NSL policy regarding denial of bail was cited by a Hong Kong court in a case that was prosecuted under traditional HK law. Have the suspended sentence rules regarding conduct been altered? What are they?