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HONG KONG: Hong Kong police made a mistake in hiding identification cards during last year’s democracy protests, while the city’s watchdog was “inadequate” to investigate complaints against officers, an official said Thursday. superior Court.
The ruling is a blow to the city’s pro-Beijing leaders who have defended the actions of the police during huge and often violent protests for democracy and have dismissed calls to review the way officers are monitored.
Judge Anderson Chow’s judgment in Superior Court on Thursday stemmed from a series of requests for judicial review filed against police by multiple parties.
During months of fighting last year, riot police often refused to wear identification cards, making it almost impossible to identify the officers involved in the allegations.
Lawyers for an Indonesian journalist who lost an eye to a police bullet, for example, have complained that they have not been able to identify the officer who shot.
No police officer has been fired during last year’s protests, while the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) has exonerated the force of any serious crime.
But Judge Chow said that the police and the government violated Article 3 of the Hong Kong Bill of Rights by failing to show identity cards and by failing to provide an adequate complaint mechanism.
Article 3 establishes that no one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.
“Even in times of public emergencies, however serious, rights under (Article 3) must be respected by the government and protected by the courts,” he wrote.
Public outrage towards the police soared during the protests and police said many officers were harassed, often through “doxxing” attacks that leak personal data online.
As criticism over ID credentials mounted, the police introduced a call sign number system for officers, a move that was later endorsed by the IPCC watchdog.
But Chow criticized that move, saying that identification “cannot be merely through the internal process of force.”
“Otherwise, victims of police ill-treatment would be totally or largely at the mercy of force.”
Chow also had a blunt assessment of the IPCC, which critics have long described as toothless.
“The existing grievance mechanism … is inadequate to meet this obligation,” he wrote.
A panel of international experts initially appointed to help the body investigate last year’s protests resigned after they said the watchdog did not have the powers to do the job properly.
The government can appeal Chow’s decision.
Court reviews have become one of the few avenues to control the power of the government in Hong Kong.
But in recent months there have been growing calls from the pro-Beijing ruling class for reform of the judicial system.
Those calls received endorsement earlier this week from Zhang Xiaoming, a senior official who helped Beijing shape its Hong Kong policies.
