HK judiciary dismisses complaints against magistrate Cheang Kei-hong

The Hong Kong judiciary has dismissed complaints against the judicial conduct of Magistrate Cheang Kei-hong over five of his court rulings.

In a statement released today, the judiciary said Chief Magistrate Victor So Wai-tak concluded the complaints from members of the public against five cases adjudicated by Cheang were unsubstantiated.

So reviewed the audio-recording transcript of the reasons for verdict and sentence, delivered by the Eastern Court magistrate, as well as other parts of the proceedings in the cases concerned. The transcripts were uploaded to the judiciary’s website.

One of the cases involved an 80-year-old elderly who stabbed activist Leung Kwok-hung, some complaints alleged Cheang “justified” the criminal act of the defendant, commended the defendant for “loving society” and encouraged violent conduct.

The chief magistrate said Cheang, during the hearing, had not directly or indirectly affirmed or encouraged violent conduct against people holding different political views. Nor did he “justify” the criminal conduct of the defendant.

“On the contrary, in view of the intimidating utterances made by the defendant that he would use violence against people holding different views, he repeatedly admonished the defendant saying he should not resort to violence because of difference in opinions,” the statement read.

In another two cases where a man was sentenced to 5.5 months for assaulting a police officer with an umbrella and a student getting a 10-month jail term for possession of offensive weapon in public place, Cheang was said to be biased in his sentence.

The chief magistrate said when Cheang mentioned “selfish” and “deplorable” during sentencing, his aim was to point out the seriousness of the case in terms of criminality and comparing it to other cases, with a view to explaining the underlying sentencing considerations.

The statement added that in both cases, Cheang has not expressed any view that indicates a personal or political inclination, or gives rise to a perception of apparent bias.

So said the chief justice of the Court of Final Appeal agreed with him: “In accordance with the principle of judicial independence, the Chief Magistrate in his administrative capacity would not, and it would be inappropriate, to interfere with any judicial decisions.”