The secretary for justice and heads of the judiciary and legal profession underlined the significance of the rule of law at the Ceremonial Opening of the Legal Year 2017 on Monday. What came to many people's minds was how the city has tried to uphold the core value of the rule of law in the past year. The biggest threat to Hong Kong's rule of law is the separatists, who sometimes disguise themselves as "localists".

First and foremost, they advocate pulling the SAR away from the country. This is totally against the Basic Law, our constitutional document, which unequivocally declares that Hong Kong is an inalienable part of China. As Zhang Xiaoming, director of the Liaison Office of the Central People's Government in the Hong Kong SAR, said in a recent interview, respect for the authority of the Basic Law is one of the baselines of "One Country, Two Systems".

The actions of the separatists were just as illegal as what they had been preaching. Hong Kong had barely recovered from the illegal "Occupy Central" movement in the last quarter of 2014, when the city saw hundreds of radical "localists" attacking police officers trying to restore law and order in Mong Kok on the evening of the Chinese New Year Day last year.

Not as violent but even more disrespectful to the law was the infamous oath-taking episode in October. Two separatist legislators-elect insulted the country and the Chinese people by changing the content of the oath at the swearing-in ceremony. They showed no respect whatsoever to the law or the body which makes such laws. It was a very timely move by the National People's Congress Standing Committee to come forward subsequently to clarify the relevant provisions of the Basic Law and thereby strengthen the rule of law in the SAR.

While such blatant disrespect of the Basic Law and local statutes were certainly detrimental to the rule of law, what is more damaging was that some members of the legal profession not only turned a blind eye to such acts but even abetted them. They claimed they were trying to defend the rule of law as a cornerstone of our society. But what they were really doing was exactly the opposite. As Secretary for Justice Rimsky Yuen Kwok-keung noted in his speech at the ceremony, they used the expression "rule of law" as a slogan to advance their own cause.

To uphold the rule of law in our society, the efforts of the government and the courts alone are insufficient. The people must do their part - not only in abiding by the law but also opposing anybody who works against it.

(HK Edition 01/10/2017 page1)