LettersDid Hong Kong witness a riot on June 12? Justice chief’s answer holds the key

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Secretary for Justice Teresa Cheng Yeuk-wah meets the media at the Legislative Council Complex in Admiralty on June 24. Photo: Dickson Lee.

Published: 8:00am, 28 Jun 2019Updated: 8:00am, 28 Jun 2019

The anti-extradition movement continues as the government refuses to meet the five demands of the protesters: to withdraw the extradition bill, retract the characterisation of the June 12 protest as a riot, have Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor step down, release and drop charges against arrested protesters, and launch an independent inquiry into police brutality.

Unsurprisingly, front-line protesters are focusing on the last two demands. But these two involve more than political problems and have to be understood from a legal perspective.

My first point relates to Police Commissioner Stephen Lo Wai-chung’s reference to the so-called Rioting Five from the June 12 protest.

According to Section 19 of the Public Order Ordinance: “When any person taking part in an assembly which is an unlawful assembly by virtue of section 18(1) commits a breach of the peace, the assembly is a riot and the persons assembled are riotously assembled.”

On the 2016 Mong Kok riot, the court judgment said: “The offence of riot … derives its gravity from a defendant choosing to become one of those who, by weight of numbers, pursued a common and unlawful purpose. It is therefore wrong to sentence a defendant on the basis of his individual act(s).”