Hong Kong top court upholds Jimmy Lai’s conviction in 2019 protests case

British media tycoon and six fellow accused found guilty in 2021 of organising and participating in an unauthorised assembly in the city in August 2019

Hong Kong's top court has upheld the conviction of media tycoon Jimmy Lai and six fellow accused for their role in the 2019 anti-government protests.

Lai, the 76-year-old British citizen and founder of the now-shuttered Apple Daily newspaper, is facing the prospect of life in prison if found guilty of sedition and collusion with foreign powers under the city’s national security law.

Lai, along with Martin Lee, founding chair of Hong Kong’s Democratic Party, and five former lawmakers were found guilty in 2021 of organising and participating in an unauthorised assembly in the city in August 2019.

A lower court last year overturned the conviction for organising the unauthorised assembly on appeal, but upheld the conviction for participating in a procession.

Martin Lee (AP)

Their appeal centred on the questions of whether their conviction was proportionate to fundamental human rights protections set out in a pair of non-binding decisions by Britain's Supreme Court known as "operational proportionality”.

In their ruling on Monday, chief justice Andrew Cheung and judge Roberto Ribeiro said the British court’s decisions should not be followed in Hong Kong as there is a difference between the legal frameworks for human rights challenges in the two jurisdictions.

“A separate proportionality inquiry in relation to arrest, prosecution, conviction and sentence is inappropriate and uncalled for," they wrote.

David Neuberger, former head of Britain's Supreme Court, was one of five judges on the Court of Final Appeal that heard the matter, adding to the debate over whether foreign judges should continue to sit on Hong Kong’s highest court amid a national security crackdown.

After the court handed down its decision, barrister Margaret Ng, one of the defendants, declined to comment.

"We just want to take this occasion to thank our legal teams and all the people who have been supporting us all the time," she said.

When sentencing the seven accused in 2021, a trial judge said the right to freedom of assembly is not absolute and is subject to constitutional restrictions.

The judge ordered Lai, Lee Cheuk-yan, Leung Kwok-hung and Cyd Ho to be imprisoned between eight and 18 months. Lee, 86, Ng, 76, and veteran politician Albert Ho, 72, were given suspended sentences.

Lai, Cheuk-yan, Kwok-hung and Ho remain in custody as they were also prosecuted or convicted under the national security law introduced in the wake of the 2019 protests which critics allege has all but wiped out public dissent.

The judgment upholding the conviction of Lai and the other accused came nearly two months after the resignation of two British judges from the Court of Final Appeal, Lawrence Collins and Jonathan Sumption.

Mr Sumption said at the time that Hong Kong was becoming a totalitarian state and its rule of law had been “profoundly compromised”.

Mr Neuberger told Reuters in mid-June he would remain on Hong Kong’s highest court “to support the rule of law in Hong Kong, as best I can”.

Lai has been held in solitary confinement since December 2020.

He is serving a sentence of five years and nine months after being convicted of violating a lease contract for his now-shuttered newspaper's headquarters and is facing a separate national security trial.

Additional reporting by agencies.