True Left

Continuing from:

https://trueleft.createaforum.com/issues/legal-decolonization/msg7280/?topicseen#msg7280

now:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/hong-kong-denies-democracy-advocates-042608391.html

(Bloomberg) -- Hong Kong has denied a jury trial to dozens of democracy advocates facing life in prison under a China-imposed national security law, according to local media, raising concerns over the rule of law in the former British colony.

Justice Secretary Paul Lam ordered the city’s largest national security case to be held before a panel of three handpicked judges in a document dated last Saturday, the South China Morning Post reported Wednesday.

His decision upholds a break with Hong Kong’s common law judicial tradition in such cases -- so far, no national security law defendant has been granted a jury.

Keep it up! Juries never existed in any non-Western civilization; this is something that all non-Westerners should be proud of!

Lam wrote that a jury trial carried “a real risk that the due administration of justice might be impaired,” according to the newspaper, which saw the document. He named “involvement of foreign factors” and the “personal safety of jurors” as reasons for the decision, citing provisions in the law for mandating a trial by judge.

Thank you. But if so, why not eliminate juries altogether?

Some 30 of the defendants, who include organizers of the 2019 anti-government protests and already jailed activist Joshua Wong, have been held without bail for more than a year
...
Three former leaders of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China have been denied bail since being charged with subversion last September, with only basic details being reported from their court appearances.

Bail should also be eliminated, as previously discussed:

https://trueleft.createaforum.com/issues/legal-decolonization/msg752/?topicseen#msg752