As I write, it is almost noon Wednesday in Hong Kong and the extraordinary bail proceedings that have been going on since Monday morning should finally be approaching an end. I can’t recall any proceedings anywhere that have been similar to what is taking place. It is hard to believe that the Hong Kong courts, and the police and prosecution that so meticulously prepared the mass arrests, could not have done a better job in coping with the expected bail situation. Without even reaching the crucial decisions regarding the grant or denial of bail, the process itself seems outrageous and a violation of due process of law. How any judge, in the circumstances reported, can manage to give careful and fair consideration to each of the 47 individual bail applications is beyond me.
Just this past week the Hong Kong High Court proved to be disappointing in its handling of merely one case — that of Jimmy Lai. The disappointment — little noticed until now — lay not so much in its refusal of bail to Mr. Lai but in its failure to give a reasoned explanation for its decision. Judge Anthea Pang made her decision immediately after the bail hearing on February 18 and then took five days to release the judicial opinion explaining her decision. Yet her opinion, although it listed various factors to be taken into account in applying the principles articulated in the recent bail decision of the Court of Final Appeal in Lai’s case, utterly fails to explain why she considered the extraordinary bail conditions offered by Lai insufficient to meet the strict standard innovated by the new National Security Law.
Can we expect anything better from the court that is now trying to handle 47 different applications?
