Hong Kong court overturns Ventus Lau’s by-election ban and declares winner was not duly elected
- Same judge had previously ruled in favour of Demosisto member Agnes Chow Ting, who filed a similar petition for by-election in Hong Kong Island
- NeoDemocrats lawmaker Gary Fan says disqualification of elected lawmakers and election candidates contributed to ongoing political turmoil in city
A Hong Kong court on Friday overturned the ban on opposition candidate Ventus Lau Wing-hong from contesting a by-election last year, and also declared that the winner was not duly elected.
Mr Justice Anderson Chow Ka-ming allowed a petition by the localist candidate from the Community Network Union, who challenged his disqualification from the contest for the Legislative Council’s New Territories East seat.
The judge decided that NeoDemocrats lawmaker Gary Fan Kwok-wai, who beat five other candidates to win the seat with 183,762 votes, was not duly elected in the poll on March 11, 2018.
The same judge had previously ruled in favour of Demosisto member Agnes Chow Ting, who filed a similar petition complaining that she was not given an opportunity to respond after the returning officer disqualified her from contesting a by-election for a Hong Kong Island seat.
In that case too, the judge decided that the winner – pro-democracy lawmaker Au Nok-hin, who ran in Chow’s place – was not duly elected.
“I see no reason to differ from the conclusions that I reached in Chow’s case,” the judge wrote. “The returning officer ought to have given Mr Lau an opportunity to respond … and her failure to do so amounted to a material irregularity in the by-election.”
Lau, who was not in court on Friday, said in a statement that his successful petition was “definitely not a victory”.
