Joshua Wong seeks to change Hong Kong laws that ban former convicts from elections for five years

Under current law, a person is disqualified from being candidate for five years once he or she is sentenced to prison for longer than three months

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Joshua Wong wants to change laws that prevent people sentenced to jail from running for office. Photo: Sam Tsang

Published: 4:30pm, 14 Nov 2017Updated: 11:08pm, 14 Nov 2017

Pro-democracy student leaders Joshua Wong Chi-fung and Ivan Lam Long-yin asked the High Court on Tuesday to review laws that bar them from running in elections for the next five years because of their jail terms.

Wong, 21, and Lam, 23, both members of the Demosisto party, were sentenced to prison in August for six and 13 months, respectively, over their roles in two separate protests in the lead up to Hong Kong’s Occupy movement in 2014.

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The pair were originally sentenced to community service but after the justice department ordered a sentencing review, the Court of Appeal sent them to jail – effectively stalling their budding political careers.

Under the Legislative Council Ordinance and the District Council Ordinance, a person is disqualified from being a candidate in elections for five years after he or she is sentenced to prison, whether suspended or not, for a term exceeding three months.

Ivan Lam was sentenced to 13 months in prison. Photo: Felix Wong

But Wong argued in a 53-page judicial review to the High Court that such laws not only restrict their right to stand for elections, but also limit voters from voting for candidates they favour.

He also said the restriction was particularly unfavourable to those given shorter jail terms because people who are sentenced to five years or more are immediately eligible to run once released from prison.