Hong Kong’s outgoing chief justice Geoffrey Ma Tao-li said on Tuesday that the judiciary is prepared to consider calls for reforms, but they cannot be on the basis that one is unhappy with the court’s rulings. That makes perfect sense.  

But the chief justice’s latest remarks on the issue of judicial reform should in no way be seen as a move to reject the increasingly vocal public demand for judicial reform altogether as unsubstantiated demand raised merely by people who are just unhappy with the court’s rulings. Neither should those demands for judicial reform be simply swept under the carpet and be ignored.

Demands for judicial reform have not only been raised by commentators but also by judicial bigwigs such as former Court of Final Appeal judge Henry Litton, whose crusade for judicial reform started as early as December 2015, well before the violent protests in 2019 and the implementation of the National Security Law in June 2020. 

More recently, when repeating his call for judicial reform, Litton minced no words in criticizing judicial malpractice, saying that Hong Kong courts use “obscure norms and values from overseas, which are totally unsuited to Hong Kong’s circumstances. Such an approach is fundamentally wrong and is opposed to basic Common Law principles”. The retired judge also noted that the courts had also consistently “subordinated the common good to the assertions of personal right. This gives a sense of personal sovereignty to those who have taken to the streets in violent protest”.

Any fair-minded person would have no difficulty in concluding that Litton’s crusade for judicial reform is intended for nothing but the common good of Hong Kong, and that it involves no personal interest. It would be dishonest of anyone to suggest that critics like Litton have called for reform in the judiciary simply because they are unhappy with some court decisions.

It is equally iniquitous of those who are trying to obfuscate the issue by floating the notion that the mounting calls for judicial reforms are merely from the “Beijing-friendly bloc” in Hong Kong, as reported by SCMP on its website on Tuesday. Since when did Judge Henry Litton become a member of the “Beijing friendly bloc”?

It would be wrong for anyone to call for judicial reform merely on the basis that he/she is unhappy with the court’s rulings. Isn’t it equally wrong for anyone to be oblivious to the legitimate concern about judicial malpractice?