The way the Hong Kong Bar Association has been dealing with the Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region over the years could best be described as utilitarian if not hypocritical. That is, they took the Basic Law seriously only when they believed it was in their favor. Recent remarks made by the body’s new chairman, Paul Harris, on the National Security Law for Hong Kong have only cemented this widely held impression.
Immediately after being elected, Harris expressed concern that some of the provisions of the National Security Law, drafted by the National People’s Congress Standing Committee and promulgated in Hong Kong on June 30, appeared at odds with the rights guaranteed under the Basic Law.
Obviously, Harris is carrying on with his predecessor Philip Dykes’s crusade against the National Security Law. Under Dykes’s leadership, the association questioned the Standing Committee’s legal power to enact a national security law for Hong Kong, citing Article 23 of the Basic Law.
But the association saw no need to respect the Basic Law when they raised objection to the NPCSC’s moves to invoke Article 158 and interpret some Basic Law articles to clarify or settle some major issues. Neither did they when they adamantly opposed the SAR government’s moves to fulfill its constitutional obligation by trying to legislate according to Article 23 of the Basic Law.
In a press release issued on July 4, 2003, the association said it deplored “any decision to resume the second reading of the National Security (Legislative Provision) Bill…”, claiming that “the Bill represents a real threat to the rights and freedoms of the residents of Hong Kong”.
Seventeen years on, the new head of the association cited the same excuse for its crusade against security legislation, oblivious to the fact that the great majority of Hong Kong people welcome it because it safeguards their lawful rights and freedoms by deterring the subversives from turning the city upside down again.
It is unfortunate that members of the Bar Association have allowed the professional body to become politicized as a platform for partisan advocacy at the expense of its credibility. It seems that the new head of the association has yet to see the need to restore its credibility by depoliticizing itself and focusing on its true functions as a professional organization.