Abode judges 'nearly quit'

Abode judges 'nearly quit'

Mary Ann Benitez
Thursday, September 08, 2011

Five Court of Final Appeal judges, including then chief justice Andrew Li Kwok-nang, considered quitting after Beijing's de facto legislative body overruled their decision on right of abode for mainland children in 1999, according to a US diplomatic cable released by the website WikiLeaks.
Justice Kemal Bokhary told US officials in 2007 that he and the other four top judges "seriously considered resigning after the 1999 interpretation, when the [National People's Congress Standing Committee] effectively overruled the Court of Final Appeal's determination, but they decided not to do so because `you can only do that once."'
Bokhary also said the justices "feared they would be replaced by less independent or competent jurists," according to the cable prepared by a visiting legal adviser from the US embassy in Beijing but sent by then US consul-general in Hong Kong James Cunningham.
The five judges who made the January 1999 ruling were Li, Bokhary, Henry Litton, Charles Ching, and Anthony Mason.
Li gave the leading judgment in "Ng Ka-ling and Others versus the Director of Immigration," which was at the center of the right-of-abode controversy.
The top court ruled unanimously that the children of parents who have the right of abode in Hong Kong also have the right, irrespective of whether their parents were permanent residents at the time of their birth.
The government asked the NPC Standing Committee to reinterpret the Basic Law's two sections in move that overturned the court's ruling.
Bokhary also said he believed that under Secretary for Justice Wong Yan- lung the government is "not likely to submit another CFA case to the NPC Standing Committee for interpretation."
When Li left office in August 2010, he said his most challenging cases involved Basic Law interpretation, particularly Ng Ka-ling's claim.
The government also asked the NPC Standing Committee in 2005 to determine the length of Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen's term after Tung Chee-hwa resigned before the end of his term.
In another cable earlier in 2006, Bokhary told a US official that he believed then secretary for justice Elsie Leung Oi-sie "had been an `unsung heroine' of Hong Kong during her tenure" from 1997 to 2005.
"Bokhary, who admitted he did not have concrete evidence, believed that Leung had `talked them [Beijing officials] out of gross excesses' with regard to Hong Kong policy on multiple occasions," the cable read.