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Brian Wong

A former senior Hong Kong prosecutor has lost a judicial challenge against his dismissal over remarks made in two emails questioning the integrity of police and inviting colleagues to attend a June 4 Tiananmen Square vigil.
In a judgment delivered on Tuesday, the High Court ruled that the civil service had sufficient basis to sack William Wong Wa-fun and strip him of 26 years’ worth of pension entitlements for violating the standards of conduct expected of a public servant.
Mr Justice Russell Coleman said Wong placed himself in an embarrassing position by alleging in an internal email that police, his close work counterparts, had lied about the motives for high-profile arrests of opposition politicians and activists during the 2019 anti-government protests.
Coleman said the judicial review applicant also aroused concern from colleagues and the press by sending a second mass email saying he wished he and his co-workers could “do the same thing” on “the last June 4 before the enactment of the national security law” on June 30, 2020.
A disciplinary inquiry into Wong’s misconduct allegations was entitled to conclude that the appeal could be viewed as “inviting or inciting others to take part in activities prohibited under the social distancing policy” during the Covid-19 pandemic, the judge found.
“Both emails can properly be thought to have affected the applicant’s proper discharge of his official duties,” Coleman wrote.
“It can be said that the very act of sending an email stating his personal views, from his office account, to the [secretary for justice], [director of public prosecutions] and other [Department of Justice] staff went against the Prosecution Code and the Civil Service Code, and the necessary principles of impartiality, professionalism and political neutrality.”
Wong is a former chairman of the Court Prosecutors (Department of Justice) Association, which represents tenured non-lawyer prosecutors working at the magistrates’ court level.
He was suspended in March 2021 for allegedly breaching protocol by sending correspondence directly to police chief inspectors working at Eastern Court instead of routing his emails through his supervisor.

While that complaint was not substantiated in the disciplinary inquiry, Wong was nonetheless found guilty of two counts of misconduct in connection with the emails he sent on September 2, 2019 and June 4, 2020.
Civil service minister Ingrid Yeung Ho Poi-yan ordered his immediate dismissal in March 2024.
Wong raised nine grounds in support of his challenge, including perceived irregularities in the inquiry’s procedures and errors in its findings, but Coleman found none of them meritorious.
The judge noted Wong sent out the 2019 email without consulting his association, after his friends asked him to “do something in his official capacity to bring out the faults of police in order to uphold justice in Hong Kong”.
Coleman said the former prosecutor’s allegations against police were unwarranted, rather than being “a piece of valuable advice” as he contended.
Not only did Wong lack concrete evidence that officers were acting in bad faith, but he also had no reason to raise his complaints with his colleagues, the court found.
Furthermore, the judge pointed out the 2020 email had been understood by some as a concealed appeal for prosecutors to commemorate the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, contravening a police ban on that year’s gathering in Victoria Park.
Despite Wong’s previously clean disciplinary record and consistently favourable performance ratings, Coleman found the civil service was entitled to impose the most severe punishment in light of the gravity of his misconduct, his lack of remorse and the negative impact on the public’s confidence in the neutrality of the prosecution and judicial system.
The court ordered Wong to bear the government’s legal expenses in the proceedings.


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Ex-prosecutor loses judicial challenge against sacking for emails flouting neutrality

Former prosecutor William Wong has lost a judicial challenge against his dismissal for remarks he made in emails that accused police of lying and invited colleagues to attend the Tiananmen Square vigil in 2020. Photo: Brian Wong

The High Court building in Admiralty. Photo: Sun Yeung

Crowds attend the 30th anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown in Victoria Park in 2019. Photo: James Wendlinger

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Hong Kong

Law and Crime

Court rules civil service had grounds to dismiss him over remarks questioning police integrity and inviting coworkers to 2020 Tiananmen Square vigil


Court rules civil service had grounds to dismiss him over remarks questioning police integrity and inviting coworkers to 2020 Tiananmen Square vigil.


June 4 vigil in Hong Kong

The High Court

Hong Kong police

Ex-prosecutor loses judicial challenge against sacking for emails flouting neutrality

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Court rules civil service had grounds to dismiss him over remarks questioning police integrity and inviting coworkers to 2020 Tiananmen Square vigil

Court rules civil service had grounds to dismiss him over remarks questioning police integrity and inviting coworkers to 2020 Tiananmen Square vigil