Hong Kong justice minister lobbies for her solicitors to qualify for senior counsel rank, amid concerns over extending the appointments to non-barristers

Hong Kong’s justice minister is lobbying for her department’s legal officers to qualify for promotion to the rank of senior counsel under a proposal that has raised concerns about the wider potential for the city’s solicitors to eventually join an exclusive club open only to top barristers.

Secretary for Justice Teresa Cheng Yeuk-wah on Wednesday said she was determined to instil fairness in a system that allowed only barristers to be promoted to senior counsel and deprived solicitors in her department of the recognition they deserved.

“That’s always been troubling me for a while,” she said. “Why is it that my colleagues in the Department of Justice who are, by their qualification as a solicitor, doing very well and very efficiently with great eloquence and advocacy in the Court of Final Appeal but not being recognised when they are actually even better than their [barrister] counterparts?”

In a letter to its members a day earlier, the Bar Association revealed that Cheng had recently proposed amending the Legal Practitioners Ordinance to change the system.

Those eligible would include the solicitor general, prosecutors, government counsel, and the department’s law draftsmen. Solicitors from the Lands Department, Companies Registry and Land Registry would be excluded.

Under the current system, Hong Kong’s chief justice can appoint barristers to take silk in recognition of their ability and standing in the profession, as well as their knowledge of law. They must have practised in Hong Kong for no fewer than 10 years in total. Solicitors are not eligible.

Barristers specialise in defending clients in the courtroom and have access to all levels of the courts, while most of a solicitor’s work is performed behind the scenes.