Mainland Chinese courts can handle Hong Kong’s national security cases if defendants cannot find a city lawyer and Beijing bans foreign ones, political heavyweight says

Hong Kong’s national security cases can be handed over to mainland Chinese courts if Beijing decides to ban overseas lawyers from arguing in the legal proceedings and defendants are unable to hire local practitioners, a political heavyweight has said.

Tam Yiu-chung, Hong Kong’s sole delegate to China’s top legislative body, the National People’s Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, on Sunday also said the Immigration Department could consider refusing to issue or renew the work visas of overseas lawyers, if they were coming to the city to represent defendants in national security cases.

Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu on Monday asked Beijing to interpret the city’s national security law after the top court upheld a decision to allow British barrister Timothy Owen, a king’s counsel, to defend media tycoon Jimmy Lai Chee-ying against charges of collusion with foreign forces.

Lee said he would recommend the standing committee interpret the national security law, based on its legislative intent and purpose, to decide whether solicitors or barristers who did not practice generally in Hong Kong should be allowed to argue cases that involved the national interest.

When asked if Beijing decided to ban foreign lawyers from representing defendants in Hong Kong national security cases, and a defendant was unable to hire any local lawyers, Tam said their case can be transferred to a mainland court.

“If we face this situation, then let’s transfer the case to the mainland,” he said.

Asked whether it would be unfair for the defendants, Tam said: “It won’t be a problem, because the transfer mechanism is already written in the law.”