High Court not a tool of the opposition

The High Court on Wednesday rejected applications to challenge the special administrative region government's proposed co-location arrangements for the future West Kowloon Station of the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Express Rail Link. Such a challenge is clearly premature at this stage, Justice Anderson Chow explains in his written decision. The rejection was made on a technicality. But the underlying message to the opposition camp is straightforward and clear: The court is not, and has never meant to be, a tool readily available for them to use whenever they find the need to fight and derail any government initiatives.

Over the years, the opposition camp has repeatedly abused the judicial review process, an important part of the city's much valued rule of law, in their fights against government policies or projects they dislike. They have without exception craftily made use of proxies to apply for a judicial review to elude any legal consequence; and the proxies, many of whom are either retirees or recipients of government subsidies, have always applied for legal aids to cover the legal costs that will eventually arise.

The same modus operandi has been employed in their campaign against the construction of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, the third runway of the Hong Kong International Airport and the development of Northeast New Territories, aside from their current attempt to block out the co-location proposal.

The rampant and continuing abuse of the judicial review process and legal aid has given rise to a public uproar. Amid rising public pressure, the Legal Aid Department has finally taken action. It decided in early June to ban Kwok Cheuk-kin, a retired civil servant who is among the judicial review applicants this time, from receiving further legal aid for the next three years. This move, understandably, has been made to protect public resources from being abused. Kwok has claimed to have filed more than 20 judicial review applications since 2006. At least eight of them have been supported by legal aid.

Few doubt that a co-location arrangement is necessary for the Express Rail Link to achieve its full economic benefits and thus make the HK$84.4-billion infrastructure project worth the investment. Anyone with sound common sense could readily understand the logic and reasons behind such an arrangement.

The crusade against joint checkpoint arrangements has been waged under the guise of upholding the law. But the practice of Hong Kong leasing out a restricted area inside the terminus complex to mainland authorities for the purpose of conducting immigration procedures is constitutionally sound. It will also meet all legal requirements after the completion of a three-step process the SAR government will adopt to implement the arrangement: Reaching an agreement with the mainland authorities; seeking approval from the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress to give Hong Kong the power to lease land to the mainland; and the enactment of the arrangement through local legislation.

Indeed, the objection to the joint checkpoint arrangement has nothing to do with the law. It has a lot to do with anti-mainland sentiment, one that abhors any move to bring Hong Kong and the mainland any closer either physically or psychologically. But integration between the two sides is an unstoppable trend, no matter what "mainland bashers" try to do.

(HK Edition 09/28/2017 page8)