Fourteen people in Hong Kong were convicted on Thursday of conspiring to subvert State power, in the city’s first subversion trial related to the National Security Law for Hong Kong.
The 16 defendants were among the 47 suspects whom police arrested in 2021 and charged with subversion under the NSL for their involvement in a so-called “primary election” held in July 2020.
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Two of the 16 defendants — barrister Lawrence Lau Wai-chung and former district councilor Lee Yue-shun — were acquitted. The Department of Justice announced it would appeal the acquittals.
The 14 convicted defendants include former lawmakers Leung Kwok-hung, Raymond Chan Chi-chuen, Lam Cheuk-ting, and Helena Wong Pik-wan. They will remain in custody until the mitigation hearing on June 25.
Thirty-one other defendants, including the primary’s initiator, Benny Tai Yiu-ting, had pleaded guilty before the trial started on Feb 6, 2023.
The trial was heard by three national security judges at the High Court — Andrew Chan Hing-wai, Alex Lee Wan-tang, and Johnny Chan Jong-herng.
In a 319-page verdict delivered at West Kowloon Magistrates’ Court on Thursday morning, the judges said that the defendants were accused of violating Article 22 of the NSL through their roles in the primary before the Legislative Council election scheduled in 2020.
The primary was designed to help the convicted defendants and others secure a majority in the legislature. According to their public statements, the convicted defendants had pledged that they would indiscriminately veto any budgets or public expenditure introduced by the government, thereby disrupting the functions of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region authorities, with the ultimate goal of subverting the State power.
Under Article 22 of the NSL, a person who organizes, plans, commits or participates in acts by force or threat of force or other unlawful means with a view to subverting State power is guilty of subversion.
Principal violators of the offense face a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.
The court believes that the array of actions and their consequential effect could have led to the dissolution of the legislature and the resignation of the chief executive, which would have seriously interfered in, disrupted and undermined the duties and functions of the HKSAR government.
The court added that the intention of the scheme, which had been made clear and known to the public a few months before the primary, was to undermine, destroy or overthrow the existing political system and structure of the HKSAR, which is established under the Basic Law and the “one country, two systems” principle.
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The 2020 legislative election was postponed to 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The court also addressed several legal challenges put forward by the defense, including the definitions of “subverting” and “State power”.
After consulting the Chinese dictionary, the legal context, and other legal provisions, the court concluded that “State power” that Article 22 seeks to protect refers to the powers of the HKSAR government and the duties and functions performed by various organs of the government; while “subverting” refers to seriously interfering in, disrupting or undermining the performance of law-based duties and functions by the body of power of the HKSAR.
After referencing previous decisions by the National People’s Congress, the court believes that the definition of “other unlawful means” in Article 22 should not be confined to means relating to the use of force or threat of force, in response to another point of the defense’s argument.
In the verdict, the judges also explained that Lau and Lee were acquitted because the court was not convinced that the pair had intended to subvert State power.
