Extra 10 months for Benny Tai over election adverts

Occupy Central cofounder Benny Tai Yiu-ting has been sentenced to 10 months in jail for breaching election rules by placing more than HK$250,000 of advertisements in newspapers in an attempt to help the pan-democratic camp secure half of the Legislative Council seats during the 2016 election.

Tai, 57, who is a former associate professor of law at the University of Hong Kong, earlier pleaded guilty to four counts of illegally incurring election expenses for promoting a "ThunderGo"polling strategy by recruiting voters to cast ballots for candidates before the election on September 4, 2016.

Judge Anthony Kwok Kai-on said in District Court that Tai was not an election candidate or an election expense agent of a candidate.

But the six adverts published in newspapers cost about HK$250,000 in election expenses and involved 22 candidates.

The 22 - whether they were elected or not - did not report the expenses, Judge Kwok said.

He said Tai's behavior denied the public access to review candidates' election expenses and undermined the integrity of elections as it was unfair to pro-establishment candidates and individual candidates.

The defense said Tai came up with the ThunderGo plan as the proportional representation of the electoral system could not reflect public opinions.

But Judge Kwok said Tai should have tried to achieve his idea of democracy and justice only through legal means and he should not just ignore election regulations.

Judge Kwok also said Tai, as a barrister, should have a better understanding of the law than the public and added he was handing down a deterrent sentence.

But he also said Tai explained his plan publicly many times without hiding it and did not benefit from the plan, which mitigated the severity of the case.

Judge Kwok said the prosecution against Tai was unnecessarily delayed for five years. If the case were brought to the court in 2019, it should be heard by the court together with Tai's Occupy Central case, he said.

But the prosecution said it took a long time for it to carry out the prosecution because laws related to the case were amended during the period and that authorities had to launch a public consultation.

The prosecution also denied the case was a political prosecution, saying it chose to bring it to the District Court as it involved a huge amount of money and Tai's plan affected all electoral districts.

Tai completed a 16-month prison term for Occupy Central last October but has since been in custody awaiting trial for conspiracy to commit subversion for alleged involvement in the primary election case of 2020.

Tai's two codefendants, directors Ip Kim-ching, 55, and Sek Sau-ching, 50, were earlier freed on a 12-month bind-over order as the Department of Justice offered no evidence against them.

Between April and June 2016, Tai urged voters to cast ballots for candidates based on their recommendations.

Half-page ads and full-page ads were placed in Ming Pao Daily and Apple Daily urging people to vote according to the ThunderGo plan.

The cost of the ads - HK$133,540 for Ming Pao and HK$120,000 for Apple Daily - was settled by Egg Alliance. Ip and Sek were signatories of its bank accounts.

wallis.wang@singtaonewscorp.com