HONG KONG – Hong Kong government authorities have failed to provide an independent mechanism to deal with police complaints that flout the city’s Bill of Rights on torture and ill-treatment, ruled the city’s High Court on Thursday.
After rampant anti-government protests, Hong Kong’s Journalist Association had come out with a judicial review in 2019. The association argued that the government was obliged to implement a mechanism of “effective investigation” into alleged ill-treatment by police.
Apart from universal suffrage, one of the key demands of the protesters last year was an independent probe into police handling of the agitators.
China-supported leader Carrie Lam said the existing mechanism was more than enough to handle such complaints and ruled out the need to set up an independent system.
The court ruled that the government was under a “duty pursuant” to Article 3 of the Bill of Rights, to set up an independent mechanism.
“The existing complaints mechanism involving the complaints against the police office, with oversight by the Independent Police Complaints Council, is inadequate to discharge this obligation,” the court said in its judgement.
The Bill of Rights was introduced in 1991 when the city was gearing up for the handover to China as part of the “one country, two systems” formula aimed at ensuring greater autonomy.
The High Court ruling comes in the wake of rampant fears over the erosion of judicial independence by Beijing.
According to a senior Chinese official, work is underway to amend the mini-constitution of Hong Kong, including its judicial system.
An independent judiciary is key to Hong Kong’s role as a global financial hub and an interface between the mainland’s closed capital system and the rest of the world.
Police officers not prominently displaying their identification numbers amounted to a violation of the Bill of Rights, said the court.