Letters | Hong Kong courts, common law yet to adapt to life under ‘one country, two systems’
- Recent developments clearly show Beijing leaning towards strengthening the ‘one country, two systems’ principle as applied to Hong Kong. The central government has never deviated from this path – an obvious truth which the courts seem not to grasp
It is an inexorable rule of nature that any organism that cannot adapt to change will perish, and so it is with human institutions. The common law is one such institution.
When Hong Kong was a British Crown colony, English was the language of government, and the common law as practised in Hong Kong sat comfortably within the governing system, even though the bulk of the population was Chinese-speaking.
Determinations by courts tended to be, at that time, brief and focused. They were easily translated into Chinese. Hence, common law became accepted as a workable system generally for the community. This gave the colony many advantages. It enabled Hong Kong to transform itself successfully from an industrial hub to a global financial centre.
Instead of steering the common law towards accommodation with the principle of one country, two systems, the highest courts in the land have gone the other way – blindly grasping at ill-digested, ill-understood ethical concepts and techniques for enforcing human rights which are unsuitable for present day Hong Kong.
