Chinese authorities ruled today that Hong Kong's leader has the power to decide whether foreign lawyers can be involved in national security proceedings in the autonomous city, which could prevent prominent pro-democracy publisher Jimmy Lai from hiring a British lawyer.
China's top legislature has drafted a legal interpretation targeting foreign lawyers who do not regularly practice in Hong Kong, state news agency Xinhua said.
The decision could overturn a ruling by Hong Kong's highest court that allowed Lai, the media tycoon and founder of the defunct Apple Daily, to hire lawyer Timothy Owen to defend him against conspiracy charges under the Beijing-imposed National Security Law in summer of 2020.
With today's ruling, the communist authorities in Beijing intervened for the sixth time in the legal affairs of Hong Kong, a former British colony to which China promised a "high degree of autonomy" and judicial independence for 50 years when it was returned to its composition in 1997.
Beijing made the decision at the request of Hong Kong leader John Lee, who sought a legal interpretation several hours after the city's highest court rejected the government's challenge to allowing Owen to represent Lai.
The Standing Committee of the Chinese National People's Congress said Hong Kong courts must obtain confirmation from the city's leader Li on whether foreign lawyers can be engaged in trials under the National Security Law, Chinese state media reported.
If the courts do not do so, then the decision should be made by the city's National Security Protection Committee, which is chaired by John Lee, it said.
Lai, who was sentenced on December 10 to five years and nine months in prison in a second trial, for fraud, was accused of being part of a conspiracy to call for sanctions or a blockade, or to engage in hostile activities against Hong Kong or China.
He was accused of conspiring with foreigners to endanger national security, and sedition, under a colonial-era law that is increasingly being used to deal with opponents of the government.
Lai's trial, which was supposed to begin on December 1, was postponed until September 2023 as Hong Kong awaited a decision by Beijing authorities on the involvement of foreign lawyers in national security trials.
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