Hualing Fu on Lawyers for Human Rights Protection: from Legal Aid to Political Lawyering (new book chapter)

"Lawyers for human rights protection: from legal aid to political lawyering"
Fu Hualing
in Sarah Biddulph and Joshua Rosenzweig (eds), Handbook on Human Rights in China (Elgar 2019) 472-492

Abstract: Since its restoration, the legal profession has played an indispensable role in China’s human rights protection. Together with journalists and NGO leaders, lawyers serve as the guardian of human rights in China, and this trinity of forces intimates a strong possibility for the development of human rights in authoritarian regimes. The purpose of this chapter is to identify three distinct types of legal advocacy for human rights in China, explore their internal dynamics, and examine their respective contributions to enhancing human rights protection and the corresponding limits. Theoretically this chapter also aims to explore a possible evolutionary trajectory of human rights lawyering in the authoritarian context which posits three stages, namely the provision of legal aid services for the poor; which is followed by public interest legal advocacy to facilitate structural changes; and finally political lawyering to catalyze potential systemic reforms.

Karen Kong and Eric Cheung Cited in Story on Hong Kong's "King of Judicial Review" (HKFP)

"Lone fighter: Meet the Cheung Chau resident who has spent a decade battling the Hong Kong gov’t in court"

Ellie Ng

Hong Kong Free Press

5 February 2017

Trying to hold the government to account in court almost always guarantees a David and Goliath scenario: the government has unlimited resources to fight legal battles, while civilians seeking to rectify injustices face systemic obstacles at every step of the judicial process. 

     But in Hong Kong, one man is unfazed by the challenge. Cheung Chau resident Kwok Cheuk-kin – widely known as the “king of judicial review” – has taken the government to court more than 20 times over the past decade, though he has only won once. The talkative 78-year-old may look like an unassuming elderly retiree, but he is a familiar figure to those on the judicial scene. When Kwok posed for pictures in front of the High Court during our interview, several security guards gave him a nod and a smile... Click here to read the full article.