Former Chief Justice Sir Yang Ti-liang dies at age 93

Former Chief Justice Sir Yang Ti-liang, the only ethnic Chinese who held the most senior position in the city’s judiciary before the handover in 1997, died at the age of 93 on Saturday morning. 

His death was confirmed by DragonNation, an alumni association of the three Dragon Foundation’s programs for young Chinese descendants. 

Yang was born in June 1929 in Shanghai and studied law at Soochow University from 1946 to 1949, and at University College London in 1953. He was called to the English Bar the next year and returned to Hong Kong in 1956 to serve as a magistrate. 

He was promoted as a High Court Justice in 1975 and became Justice of Appeal in 1980. 

He had probed the 6.18 rainstorm that killed 138 people and wounded 71 in 1972, and presided over the corruption trial of former chief superintendent Peter Fitzroy Godber three years later. 

In 1988, Yang received a knighthood and was appointed as Hong Kong’s Chief Justice in March the same year. the only ethnic Chinese judge to hold the top post in the judiciary before the SAR returned to China. 

He also resigned from the judiciary to run in the city’s first Chief Executive election in 1996, but lost the top job to Tung Chee-hwa. 

Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu expressed deep condolences on Yang’s passing. “Sir Ti-liang was a luminary in Hong Kong’s legal community and had made exemplary contributions to upholding the rule of law and to Hong Kong society,” he said in a statement. 

Secretary for Justice Paul Lam and Chief Justice Andrew Cheung also expressed their sorrow over Yang’s passing. 

(Staff reporter and RTHK)