Hong Kong overturns lower court verdict

For Hong Kong’s pro-democracy media mogul, Jimmy Lai, there came legal relief when an appeals court overturned the verdict of charging Lai for fraud and sentenced to 20 years in prison. The higher court allowed the appeal filed in Lai’s defence, and suspended the judgment, the conviction and the prison term. But this does not allow Lai to leave prison, and he has to serve a 20-year prison sentence in another case which convicted him of colluding with foreign agencies and endangering China’s security.

But the verdict of the appeals court in the case over charges of fraud raises the hope that perhaps the other conviction can be challenged too. But it remains a distant possibility. Meanwhile, the son and daughter of Lai appealed to the authorities that their 78-year-old father should be released. They said that otherwise he would die in prison because of his failing health. Jimmy has been in prison for the last five years, that too in solitary confinement.

Hong Kong courts have placed themselves in an awkward position. At one level, they have to follow the norms of communist China’s norms, where charges once brought lead to conviction. There is room for appeals, but it is rare that a lower court’s verdict is overturned. The fact that the appeal was allowed in Lai’s case is extraordinary. This is because the Hong Kong judicial system follows the pattern of the common law system of the British era.

Hong Kong has been placed in the category of “one country, two systems” when Hong Kong was handed over to China after the British lease had ended in the late 1990s. Though Beijing has gradually asserted its own authority in an uncompromising way, it is still seen as some sort of a political free trade zone, where there is more political freedom than in other parts of China. That is why, there is a strong and vocal pro-democracy group in Hong Kong and in many ways Jimmy Lai is a representative of this group. But Beijing had come down heavily on these protesters. Jimmy Lai seems to have been singled out for punishment.

But the Hong Kong judges have been trying to present a transparent system, where they gave reasoned arguments for their judgments. This had happened in the case of Jimmy Lai’s national security case. But its political intent was clear.

Jimmy Lai wanted to use the room for democratic freedoms left in Hong Kong. But Beijing wanted to shut out the prospect of a vigorous democratic opposition in Hong Kong which could then spread to the rest of the country. But China wants Hong Kong to remain the free market island where freedoms of free enterprise exist. Hong Kong is China’s window to the world.

The challenge for China is to maintain a free market Hong Kong without the political freedoms that go with a free market system. China has been trying to maintain this difficult balance, The citizens of Hong Kong like Jimmy Lai are putting up a hard fight for democracy and freedom. It seems that the pro-democracy forces in Hong Kong are losing out.

Hong Kong is prosperous in many ways, but it seems democracy is made unaffordable in this Chinese outpost. The Hong Kong experiment is crucial because the solution to the Taiwan problem is seen in terms of the “one country, two systems” base. It is essential that Hong Kong should retain its democratic features as much and as long as it can. That is why, every case of democratic protest in Hong Kong will draw the attention of the world. If there is a total clampdown in Hong Kong, then it is sure to hurt the economic prospects of China.