In July 2025, a number of reports surfaced suggesting that barristers would no longer wear their customary wigs in England.
Very quickly thereafter, in a small number of reports in Hong Kong, it was advocated that we should follow suit, pointing out that 28 years had passed since 1997. It was, they said, time to drop this “colonial relic.” There was some element of irony to this statement since what was suggested was essentially to follow what was thought to have been done in England, without asking whether this would be appropriate in the actual circumstances of Hong Kong under the One Country, Two Systems model.
In fact, no such thing had happened in England, but merely that dispensations would now be available to adjust court dress based on race, sex, and disability for a trial period of three years, in addition to dispensations already in place for belief and religion. It is important, as highlighted in the award-winning TV series The Queen of News, to fact-check.
As is traditional, on 19 January, the Ceremonial Opening of the Legal Year will be held in Hong Kong with our judges robed and barristers wearing full-bottomed wigs on stage. This is not theater but an important visual representation of the rule of law in action in Hong Kong. It serves as a tangible embodiment of the continuation of the common law as provided for under our Basic Law.
As Lee Kuan Yew, the former prime minister of Singapore, remarked, it would have been foolish to remove the statue of Sir Stamford Raffles. Investors would want to see what would happen to it as a tell-tale sign. True independence of mind is to do what is right for us under our Basic Law to the benefit of our economy and the rest of the country. Wig up and carry on.
José Antonio Maurellet SC is the Chairman of the Hong Kong Bar Association
