Hong Kong's legal heavyweights fire back at law school criticism
Statement being circulated among city's legal community supports embattled professor
Legal heavyweights including six former Bar Association chairpersons and a retired judge have signed a statement in support of embattled legal professor Johannes Chan Man-mun and the University of Hong Kong's law school, which he led.
The statement, initiated by legal sector lawmaker Dennis Kwok, was being circulated among the legal community yesterday.
"I ask those who care about the law school to sign it," Kwok, a barrister and member of the Civic Party, said.
He said 275 lawyers and law students, including six former heads of the Bar Association - Martin Lee Chu-ming SC, Audrey Eu Yuet-mee SC, Edward Chan King-sang SC, Alan Leong Kah-kit SC, Ronny Tong Ka-Wah SC and Kumar Ramanathan SC -former High Court Judge William Waung Sik-ying and some Election Committee legal-sector members had already added their names to the document.
The statement will be submitted to the University of Hong Kong's council before it meets later this month.
It follows criticisms in pro-Beijing newspaper of Chan, former law dean of HKU and a pro-democracy academic.
In the past two weeks, has run a series of articles accusing Chan of "meddling in politics" and lowering the quality of research at the law faculty, in an attack based on the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE), which was leaked to the newspaper before its release.
