Hong Kong magistrate dismisses private prosecution case alleging misconduct by Civic Party’s Dennis Kwok over Legco committee election
- The case, brought by a local businessman, argues the opposition lawmaker paralysed Legco operations over the course of 14 meetings
- But presiding magistrate rules many of the issues at play, including points of order raised and which lawmakers spoke, were out of Kwok’s control
A Hong Kong court has dismissed a rare private prosecution brought against opposition lawmaker Dennis Kwok alleging misconduct in public office over his handling of a controversial Legislative Council committee chairman election.
The Sha Tin Magistrates’ Court said the complainant, local businessman Frederick Wong Man-hon, failed to present any evidence showing which clauses of the legislature’s rules of procedure or house rules had been breached.
“The complainant has not provided any evidence to show how long the House Committee chairman election should take or how many meetings should be held for it to be considered reasonable,” acting principal magistrate Jason Wan Siu-ming said in his judgment, which was delivered on Friday in a closed hearing.
“Without concrete evidence, it is difficult for the court to judge whether it is reasonable or not that a chairman could not be elected during the 14 House Committee meetings that [Kwok] presided over,” Wan said in his judgment.
“It is a baseless and vague statement that [Kwok was seeking to] delay the election or paralyse the operation of the Legislative Council only because numerous meetings were held.”
