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Hong Kong protests
Hong KongPolitics

Hong Kong mask ban proponents, foes both plan to appeal recent ruling at city’s top court

  • April ruling left few happy, with justice department and opposition lawmakers eager to settle issues at Court of Final Appeal
  • Former top judge Henry Litton says appeal court left police in tough position by ‘yielding to ideology rather than practical considerations’

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Both the Hong Kong government and a group of opposition lawmakers plan to take last month’s Court of Appeal ruling on the city’s controversial mask ban to the city’s highest court. Photo: Sam Tsang
Alvin Lum
Hong Kong’s justice department and opposition lawmakers have both applied to appeal a ruling on the government mask ban imposed at the height of last year’s civil unrest, the Post has learned.
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The move to take the issue to the city’s top court came as a former senior judge weighed into the debate, saying the Court of Appeal’s ruling last month was impractical and would confuse frontline officers tasked with enforcing the ban.

At the centre of the legal wrangle is the government’s use of the colonial-era Emergency Regulation Ordinance (ERO) last October to prohibit the wearing of masks in marches – legal or illegal – as protests were routinely devolving into violent clashes.

An April ruling by Hong Kong’s Court of Appeal said the government was within its rights to cite ‘public danger’ in enacting a ban on masks, though the ban would be unconstitutional if applied to lawful gatherings. Photo: Sam Tsang
An April ruling by Hong Kong’s Court of Appeal said the government was within its rights to cite ‘public danger’ in enacting a ban on masks, though the ban would be unconstitutional if applied to lawful gatherings. Photo: Sam Tsang

In November, the Court of First Instance ruled the anti-mask law unconstitutional, after a group of pro-democracy lawmakers filed a legal challenge against it.

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But the Court of Appeal overturned part of that ruling last month, saying it was constitutional for the government to ban the wearing of masks at illegal assemblies on grounds of “public danger”. The same, however, was not true for legal demonstrations, they ruled.

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