Political situation
Written by: Lin Jian
2020-08-08 07:00
Last update date: 2020-08-08 07:00Today, when political conflicts are acute and things are "fresh in the wok," some news that used to be regarded as very important news can easily be covered up by larger political events. The Commissioner for Criminal Prosecutions, Leung Zhuoran, resigned last week and will leave his post at the end of the year. He directly admitted that he disagrees with the Secretary of Justice Zheng Ruohua. This leaves a big question mark for the society: What kind of reason can cause the Secretary of Justice and the senior officials in charge of the Criminal Prosecution Division to have such a big difference, to the point where only one of them can be left?
"Hong Kong 01" integrates the information of many political and legal professionals and integrates past data. It can be seen that Liang Zhuoran and even the position of the criminal prosecutor are in the "three evil positions". In the current political environment, regardless of the establishment / High-level government, democrats, or their own legal professions, it is difficult for them to be completely satisfied with the three, and the work is subject to a lot of constraints, and in the end "three sides are not pleased." Some sources even pointed out that Liang Zhuoran was no longer Zheng Ruohua’s favorite since the first day in office...
Liang Zhuoran resigned last week and directly admitted in the email that he disagrees with Zheng Ruohua. (Profile picture)
1. The role of the Department of Justice politicizes the power of prosecution to be divided
The Secretary for Justice is a politically appointed official. This and the criminal prosecutors who come from the civil service can easily have different ideas. Politically appointed officials should consider the political consequences when making decisions; civil servants should implement instructions in accordance with professional principles. There have been voices in the legal profession for a long time that the prosecution decision should not be politicized, otherwise the credibility of the legal system will be damaged, and the prosecution power should be delegated to the criminal prosecutors. Zheng Ruohua's own expertise is arbitration cases, and the criminal prosecution department personnel are in prosecution. , Can provide more professional advice. Former criminal prosecutor Jiang Leshi also told "Hong Kong 01" that the Secretary of Justice has the right to overturn the decision of the criminal prosecutor, but this situation was extremely rare in the past.
However, in actual implementation, numerous incidents occurred in the past year, which made some members of the public, especially democrats, question the politicization of the role of the Attorney General. There were reports in August last year that Zheng Ruohua and Liang Zhuoran had a meeting with the police after the 7.28 conflict in the Central and Western District, and the two sides decided to charge the arrested persons with riots. The report also pointed out that since then, Zheng Ruohua asked all the members of the public to be involved in the anti-revision incidents. The prosecution of the assembly must be handled by her. The Internet media "Jianlian.com" reported last year that Liang Zhuoran had suggested that he be charged with a lesser charge in this matter, criticizing Liang Zhuoran for "ignoring the violence of the demonstrators, which is indeed suspected of indulgence."
Against this background, the outside world is prone to doubts. As a politically appointed official, the Secretary for Justice may involve political considerations when making prosecution decisions.
On July 28 last year, police and civilian clashes broke out in Central and Sheung Wan. The government charged 44 people with riot crimes. A group of people claiming to be prosecutors of the Department of Justice sent an open letter on the letterhead of the Department of Justice to criticize Zheng Ruohua for criticizing "seeing prosecution rules like dung", mainly considering political factors. He insisted on prosecuting without sufficient evidence, and mentioned that since Leung Zhuoran is a senior barrister and a criminal law expert, responsible for all criminal prosecutions in Hong Kong, he should check and make independent judgments. Regrettably, Liang Zhuoran was also "trampled" by Zheng Ruohua. Do a good job of checking.
In fact, Liang Zhuoran also mentioned in the email to colleagues that the Attorney General should uphold justice and never "strive for convictions", which seems to be stinging.
According to sources in the legal profession, after Leung Zhuoran became the Commissioner of Criminal Prosecutions, he had frictions with his "superior" Zheng Ruohua on prosecution issues from time to time. According to the Basic Law, the Department of Justice is nominally in charge of criminal prosecution work, but the unspoken rule is to delegate power to criminals. The prosecutor is in charge, but in recent years, Zheng Ruohua insisted on his final say in some cases and was directly charged. According to reports, Zheng Ruohua had privately disclosed to others that he had decentralized powers, but it seemed that it did not help to alleviate the differences between the two on the prosecution.
Some people in the legal profession revealed that Liang Zhuoran and Zheng Ruohua "did not agree with each other," and there is indeed a long way to go. (Profile picture/Photo by Zhang Haowei)
2. Yuan Guo strongly recommends Liang Zhuoran for "promoting Zheng", and he is not the favorite of Zheng Ruohua
Some people in the legal profession revealed that Liang Zhuoran and Zheng Ruohua had "disagreements". In fact, there are traces early in the morning. The reason for this is that Liang Zhuoran was appointed by the Department of Justice as the Commissioner of Criminal Prosecutions on December 29, 2017, which coincided with the Secretary of Justice Yuan Guoqiang. He was about to leave the government. It was reported that Yuan Guoqiang recommended Liang Zhuoran at the time, but "DOJ people all know that David Leung (Liang Zhuoran) is so yellow" and think that this appointment does not respect Zheng Ruohua, who will take office as the director-general in a week. Ironically, in the eyes of social activists, Liang Zhuoran is actually not "yellow" at all, but more like a "dark blue" person, showing no mercy to the case of the democratic social activists.
It is worth noting that in 2017, the Department of Justice had three deputy criminal prosecutors who took turns acting as criminal prosecutors for about one month, including Leung Zhuo Ran, Xu Shao Ting and Tam Yiu Ho, to fill the position of the former criminal prosecutor Yang Jiaxiong. According to people in the legal profession, Liang Zhuoran and Xu Shaoding have been fighting for "sit upright." They were appointed as Senior Counsel in the same year. They have similar qualifications and abilities, but Xu Shaoding feels neutral. He belongs to the same color." He is also a more acceptable candidate for Zheng Ruohua. As a result, Liang Zhuoran took office for two months. Xu Shaoding left the government and changed to private practice.
3. No arrangement for handling national security cases
Another important reason for Liang Zhuoran's resignation may be related to the National Security Law case. In an email he sent to colleagues in the Department of Justice, he revealed that there were no cases related to the national security law. Some in the legal profession pointed out that Liang Zhuoran, as the head of the prosecutor, was not arranged to deal with the national security case. Liang Zhuoran "lack of political loyalty." "The Attorney General, who wants to be "fellow" politically, is not a prosecutor. National Security Law cases are highly sensitive and must be trusted."
The Chairman of the Civic Party and Senior Counsel Leung Ka-kit analyzed that the Commissioner for Criminal Prosecutions (DPP), in accordance with the British common law tradition, is the "chief prosecutor" of criminal cases and has no part in the enforcement process of the National Security Law; and Chief Executive Carrie Lam also defends the country. The chairman of the safety committee "chooses his pawn" to handle national security cases by himself. This is not justified in the legal system. Therefore, after discussing with some friends in the legal profession, he believed that regardless of whether he agreed with Liang Zhuoran's style, if he did resign because he could not participate in the national security case, he would actually protect the legal system.
At present, civil servants are required to be politically loyal to the chief executive, and the work of the Department of Justice may also be affected. (Profile picture)
Democrats questioned the "hot hands" of social movement cases
As mentioned above, on the other side, Liang Zhuoran also has to face the Democracy Party’s questions about the work of the Criminal Prosecutor. Liang Zhuoran has handled a number of cases involving political disputes, such as the retaking of Civic Square, the Occupy Nine Sons case and the 2016 Mong Kok riots, as the prosecution lawyer. Some members of the legal profession once described Liang Zhuoran as "aggressive" and "going well" in cases involving social movements.
Among them, for the "three sons of double learning" in the Civic Square case, namely Huang Zhifeng, Luo Guancong, and Zhou Yongkang, Liang Zhuoran clearly stated that he disagrees with the sentence of social service order only, and he will review the sentence. Luo Guancong, who is currently overseas, commented: "Qianqi doesn't think that jumping off the boat is a good person. In the middle of Liang, he fought a lot of social movement lawsuits, and every time he was so cruel, he vowed to exhaust the demonstrators to death."
Criminal prosecution work itself easily touches cases involving political disputes. In recent years, there have been frequent fierce demonstrations in Hong Kong. If Liang Zhuoran handles it strictly and "does it right", it is very easy to offend the democrats.
Some people think that the work of the Department of Justice is now under increasing political pressure. (Profile picture)
Legal professional vs political interference
As Senior Counsel, Leung Zhuoran has to face his own legal profession. He also stated in his internal email that the charges must be based on existing evidence for a proportional prosecution to ensure that the defendant receives a fair trial and a reasonable sentence. Some people familiar with the Department of Justice reported to "Hong Kong 01" that the role of the Secretary of Justice has rarely interfered with prosecution decisions. However, the situation has been different in recent years. For example, the decision to withdraw the prosecution has rarely interfered in the past, but has often been repeatedly repeated in recent years. Questions about the reasons and requests for review of the sentence have also increased.
In fact, in the past year, the Department of Justice has made many politically controversial prosecution or withdrawal decisions. For example, during the anti-amendment incident, people were repeatedly charged with possession of tools for illegal purposes, possession of any objects with intent to destroy or damage property, etc., for hiding objects such as spray paint and hammers. In some cases, the magistrate stated that the available evidence was not sufficient, but the Attorney General insisted on prosecuting the case until the defendant was found not guilty or the prosecution could not even make sense of the basic logic.
Conversely, a Mandarin-speaking mainland student who swung a knife at a graduate who called a demonstration slogan at the Chinese University in November last year was charged with possession of offensive weapons in a public place. The prosecution announced last month that it would withdraw the charge and agreed to sign only conservative behavior. The magistrate repeatedly questioned the decision. In addition, a woman living in the police dormitory was suspected of being involved in the trafficking of nearly 3 kilograms of K-boys. The magistrate stated that the evidence was sufficient and there was a high chance of conviction. However, the Department of Justice insisted on removing the charges in May this year.
Incidents of similar nature occur repeatedly. Regardless of the real cause, it is bound to be susceptible to doubt whether the Attorney General is under pressure from a certain party to consider factors outside the law when making prosecution decisions.
(Profile picture)
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Prosecutors can hardly avoid political disputes
In addition, some objective political issues will also bring heavy constraints to the work of criminal prosecution. For example, in the July 21 attack in Yuen Long last year, the police did not arrest and release many people in white clothes in public that night. No people in white clothes were charged after a month, and the prosecution progressed slowly. When asked about the progress of the case on August 15, Liang Zhuoran admitted that factors such as whether the suspect was arrested at the scene and the strength of the evidence may affect the progress of the case.
Therefore, in today's highly politicized environment in Hong Kong, the criminal prosecutors are commonly known as the "three evil positions". Faced with high-level government, "blue camps" and "yellow camps," they may be unhappy on three sides. The work in the next few years It's more like stepping on a steel wire at high altitude, without balance skills, life will be difficult.
Liang Zhuoran Department of Justice Zheng Ruohua 01 Policy Analysis
