Remarks by DSJ at media session
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Following are the remarks by the Deputy Secretary for Justice, Mr Cheung Kwok-kwan, at a media session after attending a radio programme today (October 5):
Reporter: Mr Cheung, because quite a number of overseas judges have resigned, so are you worried about voices concerning the recognition and the credibility of the top courts in Hong Kong? And do you think there is a need to fill up the vacancies as soon as possible?
Deputy Secretary for Justice: Certainly, we fully recognise the contributions made by the overseas judges in Hong Kong. Several of them left, maybe for different reasons, some for personal reasons and some for other reasons that may not be disclosed to us. I will say that we recognise their contributions. But, as you can see many excellent common law jurisdictions in the world, they do not have such kind of mechanism. The mechanism of overseas judges is a unique feature of our system, but it doesn’t mean that if you do not have overseas judges, you do not have good rule of law, as you can see from the other examples of other jurisdictions all over the world. The appointment of the overseas judges is not the job of the Department of Justice but I am pretty sure that our Judiciary will continue to look for other outstanding judges in overseas jurisdictions. For the Hong Kong people, we should recognise that there are very good remarks made by the other serving overseas judges in Hong Kong and overseas judges who just left, they fully recognise the rule of law in Hong Kong and we must have every confidence in our own rule of law, in our legal system.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)