By Jerome A. Cohen
Here’s an RTHK interview with my former student Professor Albert Chen—who is a member of the Basic Law Committee—about the new national security law, 'Security law is like a new social contract'.
As every law professor should know, a contract is one voluntarily entered into by the parties to the contract. Perhaps earlier one might have optimistically said that, despite the unequal bargaining powers of the parties, the Basic Law established a social contract since, over a very long negotiating process, the UK and even representatives of the people of Hong Kong took part in the different stages of the negotiating process. But the new national security law is in no possible sense a contract. It is a secretly drafted, extremely vague, non-negotiable political and social diktat that has immediately shrunk freedoms in Hong Kong.
The new “rule of law,” enforced by Mainland police and their local minions, is “Do what we say and you will be fine and even happy.” People will gradually lose even their freedom to be silent. Sadly, the time for benign optimism has plainly passed.