Junius Ho urges guide for judges in unrest cases

Pro-Beijing lawmaker Junius Ho Kwan-yiu has established a national safety education center to advocate judicial reforms, including setting up a sentencing committee to provide guidelines for judges.

At a press conference yesterday, Ho also said the tradition of judges wearing wigs is old-fashioned and should be abolished.

Ho said the education center will be launched under the International Probono Legal Services Association - a non-profit organization founded by Ho in 2018 - and will start operations on February 1.

In an interview with state-backed media Global Times, Ho revealed that setting up the education center cost HK$8 million. He was financially supported by businessman Cao Fushun, a Hong Kong resident who came from the mainland 10 years ago.

"The education center is basically a research-based operation. We work on the basis of the recently passed and acted national security law," Ho said yesterday.

It will advocate setting up a committee to provide a unified guideline on sentencing.

Ho and the pro-establishment camp have said magistrates were imposing sentences based on different standards in unrest cases, which Ho said was "highly undesirable."

Ho said he understands the pressure on magistrates, but emphasized it would be beneficial to have a sentencing committee to give good guidelines to magistrates and judges dealing with unrest cases.

He also said the requirement for judges to wear wigs in court is outdated.

"Living in a modern world, whether or not you need to stick to the old protocol and antique costume, such as wearing wigs in the courtroom in order to do your judicial duty, I think that is a matter open for debate," Ho said.

"In fact, there is not much room for debate either. We think that should be done quickly rather than prolonging something that is really not living in pace with the modern age."

Ho also said the center will arrange training for judges to let them have a better understanding of the situation in China.

Apart from judicial reform, the education center aims to promote patriotic education on national security for primary and secondary schools in Hong Kong, he added.

Ho said the center is inviting experts to compile textbooks on national security education and has already contacted 10 secondary schools to hold national security lectures after the Covid-19 pandemic.

The 2021 working plan of IPLSA also called upon the reintroduction of Singaporean-style caning to Hong Kong.

Caning was formerly used in the city but was abolished in 1990. The association is urging its reintroduction as a transitional penalty between imprisonment and a community service order.