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Lo Hoi-ying

Brian Wong

A Hong Kong court is to hear pleas in mitigation on Tuesday for five opposition figures found guilty of conspiring to subvert state power through an unofficial “primary” election for the legislature four years ago.
Legal academic Benny Tai Yiu-ting, said to be the architect of the primary and who will turn 60 next month, will appear at West Kowloon Court with others.
He will be joined by ex-lawmaker Au Nok-hin, former district councillors Andrew Chiu Ka-yin and Ben Chung Kam-lun, as well as activist Gordon Ng Ching-hang.
They were five out of a group of 47 defendants, all but two of whom were convicted of conspiracy to commit subversion.
Defence lawyers are expected to make submissions in a bid to secure lesser penalties for the five over the next three days.
But prosecutors are seeking to convince the court in deciding sentences that the case involved a “very serious” offence of conspiracy to subvert state power.
Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu and the government have categorised the case as serious since the verdicts were handed down last month.
The three judges on the bench for the high-profile case will hear arguments from the rest of the 45 convicted defendants, including activist Joshua Wong Chi-fung and former Democratic Party chairman Wu Chi-wai, in groups based on their polling districts over the next two months.
The court convicted 14 of 16 accused who pleaded not guilty to the offence and 31 others admitted the charge before the trial began early last year.
The judges, hand-picked by the chief executive to hear national security proceedings, found the unofficial primary poll in July 2020 constituted part of a wider plot to “undermine, destroy or overthrow” the government by creating a constitutional crisis after taking over the legislature.
The 2020 national security law imposed by Beijing set out a three-tier sentencing regime for subversion, with a minimum jail term of 10 years applicable to a “principal offender” or those whose offence was found to be of “a grave nature”.
Anyone who “actively participates in the offence” faces a minimum of three years imprisonment, capped at 10 years.
Lesser penalties are for those categorised as “other participants” in the crime.
The court may impose “lighter” or “reduced” penalties if an offender “voluntarily discontinues the commission of the offence or voluntarily and effectively forestalls its consequences”, “voluntarily surrenders himself or herself and gives a truthful account of the offence”, or renders “material” assistance in solving other criminal offences.
Any sentence reduction, however, must not exceed the minimum stipulated for a specific tier of offence, as the Court of Final Appeal held in a landmark ruling last year.
Tai, a former law professor at the University of Hong Kong and a prominent opposition activist, was one of three founders of the 2014 Occupy protests, also known as the “umbrella movement”.
He was jailed in March 2019 for 16 months on public nuisance charges, which were upheld by the Court of Appeal two years later.
Tai first floated the idea of securing a controlling majority in the Legislative Council in early 2020 to equip the opposition camp with a “lethal constitutional weapon” to force the government to accede to demands raised by protesters during the social unrest of the previous year.
In an article called “10 steps to real ‘mutual destruction’ – the fate of Hong Kong”, the ex-professor revealed the ultimate goal was to damage Beijing by triggering foreign sanctions.
The court found the plan to be in breach of the Basic Law, the city’s mini-constitution, as it would seriously undermine the power and authority of the government and the chief executive.
Of the two cleared of the charge, former district councillor Lawrence Lau Wai-chung is facing a pending appeal by the justice department.
But fellow councillor Lee Yue-shun was let off the hook after prosecutors at first stated their intention to appeal against his acquittal.


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Hong Kong courts

Mitigation pleas for Benny Tai and 4 others convicted of subversion conspiracy over unofficial Legco primary to start

Benny Tai (right) speaks to the media outside West Kowloon Court in 2019. Photo: Robert Ng

News

Hong Kong

Law and Crime

Legal academic Benny Tai and four others to appear at West Kowloon Court on Tuesday, with lawyers to plead for lighter sentences


Legal academic Benny Tai and four others to appear at West Kowloon Court on Tuesday, with lawyers to plead for lighter sentences.
