HKU Legal Scholarship Blog: New Issue of Hong Kong Law Journal (Vol. 52, Part 2 of 2022)

Thursday, October 13, 2022

New Issue of Hong Kong Law Journal (Vol. 52, Part 2 of 2022)

HONG KONG LAW JOURNAL

Vol. 52, Part 2 of 2022

Editor-in-Chief: Professor Rick Glofcheski

Associate Editor: Professor Albert Chen

Publisher: Sweet & Maxwell

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Analysis

Combatting Intimate Image Abuse in Hong Kong

Thomas Crofts... 405

Lecture

Words to Law Students, Lawyers and the Public

Kemal Bokhary... 431

Articles

Judge Unanimity: Can a Panel of Judges Constituted under theNational Security Law Return a Majority Verdict?

Danian A. Wan and Trevor T. W. Wan... 439

The Hong Kong National Security Law (NSL) has introduced into Hong Kong’s crim-inal justice system a novel method of trial in the Court of First Instance for cases involving offences endangering national security. Article 46(1) of the NSL empow-ers the Secretary for Justice to, under specified circumstances, issue a certificate directing the case to be tried by a panel of three judges instead of a jury. However, the NSL does not make clear the threshold required for the panel of three judges to return an effective verdict — whether unanimity is called for or whether a majority verdict is available to convict the accused. This article engages this question by un-dertaking an interpretive analysis of the relevant provisions to ascertain a legally defensible answer. It argues that the common law principle of jury unanimity, originating from twelfth-century English law and preserved as part of the Hong Kong common law, supplements the NSL and provides solid support for unanimity as the correct legal position. The same conclusion can also be reached by constru-ing different provisions of the NSL as a coherent whole in tandem with other con-stitutional and statutory instruments including the Basic Law and the Hong Kong Bill of Rights.

Departure from International Human Rights Law and Comparative Best Practice: HKSAR v Tong Ying Kit

Yan-ho Lai and Thomas E. Kellogg... 465

Reshaping the Stock Market to Accommodate Chinese BusinessGiants: The Reintroduction of Weighted Voting Shares in Hong Kong

Fa Chen ... 487

Competition Law: An Exception to Human Rights?

Stephen Crosswell... 513

Legal Convergence in the Greater Bay Area through Liberalisation of the Legal Services Market and Cooperation in Dispute Resolution Services

Yun Zhao and Hui Chen... 555

This article analyses the process and implications of legal convergence in the Greater Bay Area (GBA). Existing models for legal convergence are not directly ap-plicable to the GBA, due to operation of the “one country, two systems” principle. This article, therefore, explores pathways to legal convergence from the perspec-tives of promoting diversified dispute resolution and resolving inter-regional legal conflicts across three jurisdictions. It argues that an innovative legislation mecha-nism should be introduced to address inter-regional legal conflicts, amend arbitra-tion rules and clarify ambiguous provisions in existing cooperative agreements. In addition, it is recommended that legal service resources across the GBA be consoli-dated with cooperation mechanisms and establishment of an international arbi-tration centre and that GBA governments support further liberalisation of the legal services market and strengthen cooperation between arbitration institutions.

Case Studies of Securities Fraud in the VietnameseSecurities Market

Toan Minh Le, Gordon Walker, Ha Hai Duong, and Trang Huu Tran... 583

China Law

“Visit Your Parents”: How Chinese Courts Apply the Elderly

Law Luxue Yu... 615

Judicial Regulation of Standard Form Contracts in China

Yuxuan Wang... 641

Extraterritorial Aspects of the Fundamental Rights Articlesin the Constitution of China

Liang Yu and Fons Coomans... 683

Dancing in Chains: Reassessing China’s Foreign InvestmentLegislation (Part I)

Li Yang, Hui Pang and Charlie Xiao-chuan Weng... 709

Force Majeure under Chinese Law as Applied to Port TerminalOperations