New Book by Richard Wu et al : The Good Chinese Lawyer: a Student Guide to Law and Ethics (Cambridge University Press)

The Good Chinese Lawyer: a Student Guide to Law and Ethics
Adapted by Adrian Evans, Richard Wu and Xu Shenjian
Cambridge University Press
Published in January 2023

312 pp.

Description: The Good Chinese Lawyer explores the ethical and professional challenges that will confront a law student, and will help them to prepare for life as a lawyer. The book offers principled and pragmatic advice about how to overcome such challenges. It urges readers to examine motives for seeking a career in law, to foster a deep understanding of what it means to be 'good' lawyer, and how to draw on virtue and judgment when difficult choices arise, rather than simply relying on rushed compliance with rules or codes. The Good Chinese Lawyer analyses four important areas of legal ethics – truth and deception, professional secrets, conflicts of interest, and professional competence – and explains the choices that are available when determining a course of moral action. It links theory to practice, and includes many diagrams and scenarios to illustrate ethical concepts and good decision-making.

• Includes a values-identification process, situated in the context of topical scenarios that apply throughout Greater China, relevant to and accessible by law students
• Provides a comparison of relevant legal professional conduct rules applicable to mainland China, Hong Kong SAR and Taiwan
• Utilises easy-to-understand tables that set out the legal ethical principles of major philosophical traditions, matched to those legal professional conduct rules

Richard Wu Awarded the HKU Law Faculty Knowledge Exchange Award 2021

The Faculty Knowledge Exchange (KE) Awards of The University of Hong Kong were introduced in 2011 to recognise each Faculty’s outstanding KE accomplishment that has made demonstrable economic, social or cultural impacts to benefit the community, business/industry, or partner organisations. Dr Richard Wu of the Department of Professional Legal Education received the Faculty Knowledge Exchange Award 2021 of the Faculty of Law for the project “From Research into Values of Future Lawyers to Promoting Legal Professionalism in Greater China Region: Informing and Implementing Legal Ethics Education in Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan”.

     Dr Wu’s vision of promoting legal professionalism was key to the development of new legal ethics courses in three major universities in the Greater China Region: School of Transnational Law, Peking University in Mainland China, HKU Faculty of Law in Hong Kong, and National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University School of Law in Taiwan. As an Adjunct Professor in both Mainland China and Taiwan as well as Associate Professor in Hong Kong, he retains close ties with law schools in Greater China Region. Dr Wu’s research on the values of law students in the region has promoted awareness of the importance of legal professionalism and helped develop legal ethics education across the Greater China Region and his courses have been extremely well received by the law students who have taken them. The courses are designed on a value-based experiential learning model that includes innovative use of technology, sharing on legal ethics issues by global lawyers and global law professors, innovative reflective learning and pioneering visual teaching aids. ...Click here to read the full post.

HKU Law Awarded Five KE Impact Projects 2021/2022

The University of Hong Kong's Knowledge Exchange (KE) Funding Scheme for Impact Projects supports projects that have the potential to create social, economic, environmental or cultural impacts for industry, business or the community by building on expertise or knowledge in the University and projects designed to collect evidence for corroboration and evaluation of impacts. Engagement projects that aim to benefit non-academic communities beyond Hong Kong are strongly encouraged.

     Five projects are supported under the KE Impact Project Grant Scheme in the 2021/22 with an exceptional outstanding case being awarded with the maximum funding amount of HK$150,000. Congratulations to :

• Ms Amanda Whitfort "Wildlife Crime: Knowledge Transfer for Informed Sentencing in Greater China". This ongoing interdisciplinary project involves a collaboration between Associate Professor Amanda Whitfort, Faculty of Law, Dr Caroline Dingle, School of Biological Sciences and Dr Gary Ades, Head of Fauna, Kadoorie Farm and Botanical Garden, in producing species victim impact statements, showing the impact of wildlife crime on endangered species. These statements aid the Agricultural Fisheries and Conservation Department, Customs and Excise Department and the Department of Justice (Hong Kong) and Forestry police and prosecutors in the PRC to effectively prosecute wildlife crimes, and assist the judiciary in Hong Kong to deter, through effective sentencing, wildlife offences against Hong Kong legislation.

• Ms Isabella Wenting Liu and Ms Stephanie Biedermann “Understanding Rule of Law for Secondary School Students”. The project aims at enhancing Hong Kong secondary school students’ understanding of the rule of law and its crucial role as the foundation of Hong Kong’s success and institutions. HKU law students will develop teaching plans on different rule of law topics and deliver legal talks at secondary schools. This project provides a platform for HKU students and secondary schools to form connections and develop a forum for discussion on foundational legal concepts. Teaching materials will be made accessible to the wider community through the ROLE website (www.role.hku.hk).

• Ms Darcy Lynn Davison-Roberts “Employment & Labour Claims Knowledge Hub”. In partnership with LITE Lab@HKU, A2J and HKWWA, this project seeks to implement the Hub; a technology-based caselaw databank for use by the primary beneficiary HKWWA. The Hub will provide the means by which HKWWA can collect, collate and analyse labour and employment caselaw and in turn facilitate their mission of promoting and improving women workers’ interests and status in Hong Kong through their advocacy work. Once established, the project intends to make the Hub open-sourced and available to other NGOs. This project aims to achieve greater transparency in the judicial decision-making process and to increase access to justice for grassroots, female workers in respect of their labour and employment law issues in Hong Kong.

• Ms Darcy Lynn Davison-Roberts “Legal Advice Programme for Grassroots Women Workers”. This project aims to address the lack of employment and labour law expertise and legal resources available to the grassroots women workers served by the primary beneficiary, the Hong Kong Women Workers’ Association (“HKWWA”). By conducting a needs and capacity assessment, the project will first seek to understand what HKWWA, and its clients identify as their existing and future legal needs and what legal knowledge and resources exist within HKWWA. Following this preliminary analysis, the project will revise and expand upon HKWWA’s existing legal case handling practices and knowledge base and design and implement a bespoke monthly community legal advice programme similar to those utilised by other Hong Kong NGOs.

• Dr Richard Wai Seng Wu “Building Better Lawyers in China and Australia in the Post-Covid-19 Era Through Strengthening Their Capabilities in Innovation, Creativity and Ethics with Experiential Learning”. This interdisciplinary project aims to build better lawyers in China and Australia by strengthening their capabilities in innovation, creativity and ethics in the post-Covid-19 era. Cutting-edge knowledge in these areas will be delivered through webinars to lawyers in these two countries by academics from HKU, UC Berkeley, Melbourne University and Birmingham University, as well as law firm partners, legal counsel and legal technologist who have local experience in China and Australia. This project seeks to create social impact by raising Chinese and Australian lawyers’ awareness of the importance of innovation, creativity and ethics for globalized legal practice in post-Covid-19 era.

HKU Law Awarded Three KE Impact Project Awards 2019/2020

The University of Hong Kong's Knowledge Exchange (KE) Funding Scheme for Impact Projects supports projects that have the potential to create social, economic, environmental or cultural impacts for industry, business or the community by building on expertise or knowledge in the University and projects designed to collect evidence for corroboration and evaluation of impacts. Engagement projects that aim to benefit non-academic communities beyond Hong Kong are strongly encouraged. 

     The Faculty of Law was successful in obtaining three awards in the 2019/20 round of funding, for most cases in the amount of or less than HK$100,000 except one exceptional outstanding case in the amount of HK$150,000. Congratulations to :

• Ms Amanda Whitfort "Wildlife Crime: Knowledge Transfer for Informed Sentencing in Greater China". This ongoing and interdisciplinary project involves a collaboration between Associate Professor Amanda Whitfort, Faculty of Law, Dr Caroline Dingle, School of Biological Sciences and Dr Gary Ades, Head of Fauna, Kadoorie Farm and Botanical Garden, in producing a series of wildlife crime impact reports (similar to victim impact statements for endangered species) to aid the Agricultural Fisheries and Conservation Department, Customs and Excise Department and the Department of Justice in effectively prosecuting, and the judiciary in sentencing wildlife crime, under the Wild Animals Protection Ordinance (Cap 170) and the Protection of Endangered Species of Animals and Plants Ordinance (Cap 586). 

• Dr Richard Wu "Empowering Local School Teachers' Capabilities in Responding to Covid-19-Related Legal Issues Through Experiential Learning". This interdisciplinary project aims to empower local teachers’ capabilities by equipping them with common law concepts and values to respond to COVID-related legal issues in the school setting. Legal knowledge with real life examples will be delivered through experiential learning workshops by academics from HKU Law Faculty, Chinese University of Hong Kong and Education University of Hong Kong, as well as barrister-at-law and legal counsel with knowledge and experience in dealing with COVID-related legal issues. Moreover, this project seeks to create social impact by raising local school teachers’ awareness of legal issues in the school setting that may arise from COVID-19. 

• Mr Brian Tang "Fostering Law, Innovation, Technology and Entrepreneurship (LITE) through one stop legal online information, tools and resources on LITE Lab @ HKU website". LITE Lab@HKU seeks to be Hong Kong’s first-stop online self-help legal resource for startup companies, social entrepreneurs and non-profit associations who face many legal related issues and challenges setting-up and operationalizing through student-created introductory and user-friendly self-help information, tools and resources. This initiative supports Hong Kong government and HKU’s focus on cultivating and supporting technology, innovation and entrepreneurship. LITE Lab@HKU seeks to build on the great tradition at HKU Faculty of Law’s of assisting Hong Kong citizens through the Community Legal Information Centre (CLIC) website initiatives and its specialized segments for Youth CLIC, Senior CLIC, and Family CLIC.

Wu and Kepli's Empirical Study on the Ethics and Motivating Values of Law Students in Malaysia (IJBEL)

"An Empirical Study on the Ethics and Motivating Values of Law Students in Malaysia"

Dr Richard Wu and Dr Mohd Yazid bin Zul Kepli

International Journal of Business, Economics and Law
April 2019, Vol. 18, Issue 6

Abstract: This article investigates the ethics and motivating values of law students in Malaysia in the final two years of their legal education. Our empirical research examines the demographics of these law students. This is followed by an examination on their responses to diverse ethical dilemmas including conflict of interest, bribery, corruption, and pro bono. The findings reveal that Malaysian law students are strongly inclined to obey to the law and will only give priority to family members’ well-being and family loyalty in extreme situations. The study suggests a relatively weak pro bono culture of Malaysian law students similar to their counterparts in Hong Kong. It was also discovered that an overwhelming number of respondents are not willing to sacrifice family time for their careers. The interest of family remains a strong consideration in making decision.  Click here to download the full article.

RGC Awards $6 Million in Research Grant Funding to HKU Faculty of Law

Congratulations to our 11 colleagues who were successful in the 2018-2019 round of research grant funding by Hong Kong's Research Grants Council (RGC).  The success rate for General Research Fund (GRF) projects was 73%, a little better than last year.  The projects cover a range of legal topics of importance to Hong Kong, China and beyond.  This year the largest grant was awarded to Dr Richard Wu for his ongoing and expansive study of law student values.  This is the fifth RGC grant Dr Wu has received in support of his comparative study of law students in 14 jurisdictions.  The details of the new 11 GRF projects are as follows:

• Weixia Gu, The (Recognition and) Enforcement of Mainland Judgments in Hong Kong: A Regional Conflict of Laws Study, $590,000, 36 months 
• Angela Zhang, Antitrust and the Rise of China: An Institutional Analysis, $637,440, 36 months 
• Shahla Ali, Soft Law from the Ground Up: The Role of the UNCITRAL Regional Centre for Asia and the Pacific in the Formation of Transnational Dispute Settlement Norms, $688,080, 36 months 
• Thomas Cheng, Anti-Monopoly Law Enforcement in China, $594,100, 36 months 
• Rebecca Lee, Rationalising Recovery for Mistaken Transfers at Common law and in Equity?, $347,200, 24 months 
• Haochen Sun, Buildinga Robust Trademark Fair Use Mechanism in China, $540,500, 36 months 
• Albert Chen, Constitutional governance in ‘Greater China’ and the Unfinished Project of Chinese Constitutionalism, $491,980, 24 months 
• Peter Chau, Examining non-instrumental justifications for tort compensation, $260,000, 24 months 
• Shitong Qiao, Eminent Domain in Chinese Courts: An Empirical Study, $450,653, 36 months 
• Lusina Ho, Legal Reform of Enduring Powers of Attorney: A Comparative Analysis, $434,298, 24 months 
• Richard Wu, An Empirical and Comparative Study of Law Students’ Perceptions of Their Values in Four Emerging and Transitional Economies: China, Russia, South Africa and Kazakhstan, $918,160, 36 months

HKU Law Faculty Awarded Four KE Impact Project Awards 2017/18

The University of Hong Kong's Knowledge Exchange (KE) Funding Scheme for Impact Projects supports (A) projects that have the potential to create social, economic, environmental or cultural impacts for industry, business or the community by building on expertise or knowledge in the University; and (B) projects designed to collect evidence for corroboration and evaluation of impacts. Engagement projects that aim to benefit non-academic communities beyond Hong Kong are strongly encouraged.  

     The Faculty of Law was successful in obtaining four awards in the 2017/18 round of funding, each in the amount of HK$100,000.  Congratulations to Dora Chan, Katherine Lynch, Anne Cheung and Richard Wu.  The details of their projects are described below:

Ms Dora Chan 
E-package of DIY Residential Tenancy Agreement 
The proposed project aims to provide the public community with a template residential tenancy agreement and a set of useful guidelines (including stamping and registration procedures) on how to enter into a valid residential tenancy agreement. Members of the public can then use and adapt the template to independently enter into a tenancy agreement for their residential homes, an important document that has a significant impact on their daily lives, without the costs and trouble of engaging a lawyer. The main objective is to provide free legal support to the community and to encourage knowledge exchange on tenancy matters. 

Ms Katherine Lynch 
Evaluation of the Children’s Issues Forums & Legal Reform of Child and Family Law & Policy in Hong Kong 
This project aims to collect evidence for corroboration and evaluation of impacts arising from the research and knowledge exchange project, “Children’s Issues Forums & Legal Reform of Child and Family Law in Hong Kong”, which created a multidisciplinary forum enhancing policy and legal reform for children’s issues in Hong Kong. The project will evaluate through quantitative and qualitative measures the impact of the project on increasing public awareness of children’s issues, changing legal policy on and creating pressure for law reform in Hong Kong’s child and family justice system. 

Professor Anne Cheung 
Hong Kong SAR Treaties e-Library 
The proposed project aims to provide free access to legal information for the public in Hong Kong by building a one-stop comprehensive and electronically searchable database of treaties and international agreements applied to the Hong Kong SAR in Hong Kong Legal Information Institute (HKLII). The key objective is to support the community and engage in knowledge exchange.

Dr Richard Wu 
Engaging Local School Teachers with Common Law Concepts and Values Through Experiential Learning 
This project is a pioneering interdisciplinary collaboration in common law education for local school teachers between academics from HKU Law and Social Science Faculties as well as academics from two other local universities. On basis of the project team members’ previous teaching and research projects on common law education for ‘non-law’ students and experiential learning in law, as well as teacher education, this project will engage local school teachers with common law concepts and values through experiential learning like case discussion, personal sharing by senior lawyers, and visual media . The project attempts to impact local school teachers by promoting their understanding of the common law system in Hong Kong and enhance their awareness of general common law concepts and specific common law values like justice and equality. 

Richard Wu's Study of Ethical Values of Law Students in Beijing, Taipei and Hong Kong (J Comp Law)

"A Comparative and Empirical Study of Ethical Values of Law Students in Beijing, Taipei and Hong Kong: Implications for Legal Education and Law Schools in Mainland China"

Richard Wu

The Journal of Comparative Law

April 2017, Volume 11, Issue 2, pp 258-282 

Abstract: This article investigates empirically the ethical values of law students in the Greater China Region in their final two years of legal education by surveying 1,027 students in Hong Kong, Beijing and Taipei. It first compares the demographics of law students in these three Chinese cities before examining their responses to different ethical dilemmas. Our data revealed a feminization of legal education in that women are dominating the law student population in Mainland China. It also appears that a new generation of lawyers emerging in Mainland China who attach more importance to the value of 'work-life balance'. On balance of the findings, this article argues that Chinese law schools should cultivate virtues like honesty, perspectives and fairness among their students to help them encounter ethical dilemmas. They should also nurture professionalism among law students in their 'ethics of duties', 'ethics of aspirations', and 'personal conscience'. Finally our data did not reveal any negative impact of law school experience on the ethical values of law students in Mainland China, which findings contradict the argument that legal education has diminished law students' values as suggested in some existing literature. 

Richard Wu's Empirical Study of Hong Kong Law Students' Ethical Values (J of Legal Ethics)

"An empirical study of Hong Kong law students’ ethical values: Does common law education enhance their professionalism?"

Richard Wu

Journal of Legal Ethics

Mar 2017, published online, pp 1-26

Abstract: This article investigates empirically the ethical values of law students in Hong Kong in their final two years of legal education. It first analyses the demographics of these law students before examining their responses to different ethical dilemmas. The findings suggest that feminisation has taken place in Hong Kong law schools. The study also found that a new generation of law students is emerging in Hong Kong that put more emphasis on the value of work-life balance. Finally, the article argues that common law education has enhanced the professionalism of law students in Hong Kong and has contributed to their development of such professional values as ‘professional integrity’, ‘obedience to the law’ and ‘civil duty’.

RGC Awards $8.5 Million in Research Grant Funding to HKU Faculty of Law

The Faculty of Law has performed exceptionally well in the 2017-2018 round of research grants awarded by the Research Grants Council (RGC).  The RGC awarded more than HK$8.46 million in funding to 10 General Research Fund (GRF) projects and 3 Early Career Scheme (ECS) projects. This is more than double the amount awarded for the 2016-2017 year.  The success rate for this year was 71% (GRF) and 100% (ECS) respectively.  The projects tackle important issues in constitutional law, trust law, human rights law, legal education, legal history and theory, and land law.  Some are inter-disciplinary.  The largest grant of more than $1 million went to Professor Hualing Fu for his project on police power in transition societies including China.  Congratulations to the following 13 colleagues:

• Po Jen Yap, Courts and Democracies in Asia, $736,600, GRF, 36 months
• Hualing Fu, Police Power in Transition Societies: China in Comparative Perspectives, $1,058,488, GRF, 36 months
• Rebecca Lee (Co-I: Lusina Ho), The Modern International Trust Under Siege: Legislature, Judiciary, and Theoretical Implications, $361,675, GRF, 24 months
• David Law, The Language and Ideology of Constitutions: A Computational Linguistics Analysis, $784,538, GRF, 36 months
• Lusina Ho (Co-I: Rebecca Lee), Developing Compensatory Remedies for Breaches of Trust and Fiduciary Duties, $512,198, GRF, 24 months
• Eric Ip, The Constitutional Foundations of Free Markets: Economic Provisions of the Hong Kong Basic Law in Comparative Perspective, $892,484, GRF, 36 months
• Kelley Loper, International human rights law and refugee protection in Asian states not party to the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, $563,640, GRF, 24 months
• Jianlin Chen, Law, State and Emerging Natural Resources: Theoretical Perspective and Case Study of Climate Resource Management in China, $570,000, GRF, 36 months
• Richard Wu, An Empirical and Comparative Study of Law Students’ Perceptions of Their Values in Four Fastest-Growing Asian Countries: China, India, Thailand and Philippines, $844,880, GRF, 36 months
• Michael Ng, Freedom of Expression, Media Censorship and the Rule of Law in British Hong Kong (1850s-1980s), GRF, 36 months
• Daisy Cheung, Finding the Right Balance: Constructing a Theoretical Approach for the Assessment of Guardianship Systems for the Mentally Incapacitated in East Asia, ECS, $446,560, 36 months
• Dan Matthews, The Aesthetics of Sovereignty in the Age of the Anthropocene, $289,032, ECS, 24 months
• Shitong Qiao, National Laws and Local Land Reforms: The Spectrum of Legality, $555,400, ECS, 36 months.

Comparative Study of Legal Education and Pathways to Admission in Singapore, Hong Kong and Australia (J of Legal Education)

"Legal Education, Practice Skills, and Pathways to Admission: A Comparative Analysis of Singapore, Hong Kong, and Australia"

Andrew Godwin and Richard Wu

Journal of Legal Education

Winter 2017, Vol. 66, Number 2, pp. 212-236

Introduction: It appears axiomatic that as legal practice becomes more globalized, so too must legal education. One of the byproducts of the globalization of legal practice, involving both an increase in cross-border activity and also changes in the way the legal profession is structured and regulated, is that law schools are increasingly expected to prepare graduates for the challenges of global practice. An important question that arises in this respect is the role law schools should perform in preparing graduates for admission and, in particular, equipping graduates with the practice skills that lawyers need to operate effectively in a cross-border context. A substantial body of literature exists concerning the globalization of legal education and the globalization of legal practice. This paper contributes to the discourse by examining the relationship between the design of pathways to admission—namely, the processes by which graduates qualify for admission to legal practice—and legal education, particularly the incorporation of practice skills into the law school curriculum. This paper examines three jurisdictions in Asia that share a common-law heritage but adopt substantially different pathways to admission: Singapore, Hong Kong, and Australia. All three jurisdictions share a requirement for graduates to obtain practical training before they gain admission to practice.Singapore is unique among the three jurisdictions in that its pathway to admission involves a bar examination that follows a compulsory preparation course. Hong Kong and Australia, by contrast, currently do not adopt a bar examination and, instead, require completion of postgraduate professional legal training as a prerequisite to admission. However, two important points of difference exist between Hong Kong and Australia. First, enrollment in Hong Kong’s postgraduate certificate in laws (PCLL), an intensive one year full-time legal qualification program, is through competitive application. The existence of caps at each of the three providers means that not all graduates are guaranteed of winning a place in the PCLL and, therefore, gaining admission to practice. By comparison, enrollment in the practical legal training (PLT) course in Australia is not capped and all law graduates are therefore able to enroll in the course and gain admission to practice upon successful completion of the course. The second point of difference is that graduates in Australia can undertake supervised workplace training as an alternative to the PLT course and gain admission to practice on that basis without the need to complete a postgraduate professional training course. Interestingly, Hong Kong is currently moving closer to the approach of Singapore with the announcement by the Law Society of Hong Kong in January 2016 that a common entrance examination will be introduced and will come into effect by 2021. Critical questions in all jurisdictions are the role that law schools should play in preparing graduates for admission and the extent to which practice skills are expected to form part of the curriculum for the academic degree, as distinct from the professional training course that follows graduation and precedes admission. In this respect, the similarities are closer among the three jurisdictions. Unlike the American Bar Association, which requires students to complete at least six credit hours of experiential education, all three jurisdictions to date have avoided a prescriptive approach and have instead given the law schools discretion to determine how practice skills should be incorporated into the curriculum. However, some interesting points of difference exist among the three jurisdictions in terms of the extent to which the design of pathways to admission has been driven by perceived deficiencies in the teaching of practice skills within the academic degree and, therefore, the need to supplement these deficiencies as a prerequisite to practice. This paper examines the development of pathways to admission and identifies a number of interesting countervailing trends and contradictions. A central question raised by the comparative analysis is whether professional admission courses should serve as a gatekeeper in terms of assuring quality and competence or whether they should serve simply as preparatory courses for admission to the legal profession. The comparative analysis reveals a number of countervailing trends and contradictions concerning fundamental issues such as the function of a law degree and the impact of globalisation on legal education and legal practice. This paper argues that it is important for legal education to strengthen practice skills while maintaining a rigorous focus on legal doctrine and general skills such as analysis, problem-solving and research. This paper is structured as follows: Part II explores the relationship between legal education and legal practice by examining the emergence of professional training courses and the increasing expectations for law schools to incorporate practice skills into the curriculum. Parts III, IV, and V consider the pathways to admission in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Australia, respectively, and track the debates in each of those jurisdictions concerning the relative importance of practice skills in their design. Part VI sets out the findings of the comparative analysis and offers some observations by way of conclusion.  Click here to read the full article.

 

New Law Projects Funded by HKU Seed Funding for Basic Research

Congratulations to our nine colleagues who recently obtained grants from the HKU Seed Funding for Basic Research.  A total of more than $0.5 million was awarded in funding.  The project topics range from crowd-funding, China's anti-monopoly law to the law and policy of creative industries and innovation in Hong Kong.  The details of the awarded projects are as follows (in no particular order):

1.  The Case for Crowd-Funding in Hong Kong, Alexa Lam

2. Dispute Resolution in China: Litigation, Arbitration, Mediation, and their Cross-Interactions, Weixia Gu  

3. Analysis of Intellectual Property Licence Refusals under the Chinese Anti-Monopoly Law, Kelvin Kwok 

4. Should Directors Be Accountable to Shareholders?: A Critical Reassessment, Ernest Lim

5. How Can Copyright Law Best Promote the Public Interest? Perspectives from the Google Digital Library Litigations in China and the United States, Haochen Sun

6. Asian Courts in Dynamic Democracies, Po Jen Yap 

7. A Comparative Study of Civil Sanctions Against Money Laundering, Simon Young

8. Professionalism, gender and culture - empirical and comparative study of professional attributes using standardized clients in professional legal education, Wilson Chow

9. A Study of the Law and Policy for Creative Industries and Innovation in Hong Kong, Richard Wu

Congratulations to RGC Research Grant Awardees (Faculty of Law)

Congratulations to Shahla Ali, Antonio Da Roza, Peter Chau, Hualing Fu, Marco Wan and Richard Wu on their successful 2015-2016 General Research Fund grants awarded by Hong Kong's Research Grants Council.  A range of interesting projects are funded including projects on civil mediation reform, unrepresented civil litigants, criminal punishment philosophy, Chinese public interest lawyers, law and film in Hong Kong, and a comparative study in Asia of law students' perception of values.  This year's excellent results represent a success rate of 55 per cent and a total amount of funding of more than HK$3.6 million.

Richard Wu Comments on Strengthening Procurator's Ethics in China

"Open Access to Case Information: Recent Measure to Strengthen Procurators' Ethics in China"

Richard Wu

Legal Ethics

May 2015, Vol. 17, Issue 3, 2014, pp 454-457

In China, the public has had little access to information about legal cases. There has been a need for reform in this important area. On 1 October 2014, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate of China commenced the implementation of the ‘Provisional Stipulations on Open Access to Information in People’s Procuratorate Cases’ (‘the Stipulations’). This represented a milestone in strengthening the transparency of procurators’ works in the country. The Stipulations are divided into six chapters, and cover general principles, inquiries about procedural information for general cases, dissemination of information on important cases, public access to legal documents,5 and the supervision and protection of case information.

     In implementing open access to case information, the procuratorates should observe the principles of lawfulness, convenience to the public, timeliness, regulation and safety. They should use various means including the internet, telephone, post, and over-the-counter services to provide information to interested parties and the public. In addition, a unified national electronic system must be established so that the procuratorate at all levels can link to this electronic system in order to provide open access to case information. However, open access will not be granted to four categories of cases, namely cases involving state secrets, commercial secrets, privacy and minors’ offences. Information about these kinds of cases must not be disclosed to the public... Full text available on Taylor & Francis online and later from the Hart Publishing webpage.

New RGC Research Grant Funding

Congratulations to the following Faculty of Law colleagues who were successful in obtaining a General Research Fund grant from the Research Grants Council in July 2014.

Department of Law
1.  Dr. James Fry, "Comparative Law of International Organizations: An Inductive Approach", HK$1.2M, 36m
2.  Dr. Yahong Li, "Fair Use and Creativity in Internet Environment from a Comparative Perspective", HK$482K, 36m
3.  Dr. Pojen Yap, "Constitutional Dialogue in Common Law Asia", $HK676K, 36m

Department of Professional Legal Education
4.  Dr. Michael Ng, "Mapping Colonial Justice in Early 20th Century Hong Kong (1900-1941): A Historical GIS Study", HK$979K, 36m
5.  Dr. Richard Wu, "An Empirical and Comparative Study of Law Students' Perceptions of Their Values in Three Asian Common Law Jurisdictions: Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia", HK$681K, 36m