Bless The Afflicted
The CE-selected of HKSAR, John Lee asks the court to waive penalties for some advertisement violations during his election campaign.
First of all, some background.
In HK, there’s a ceiling for election campaign advertisements, including social media postings. Other than the usual paid advertisements, some candidates might ask certain public figures to say a few good words of support in printed or digital media. Usually, they do these for free, and it isn’t easy to put a monetary value on them. Also, to avoid the abuse of use, the rule is that once they post these support messages, they must follow up with a consent letter, signed by the person involved within 24 hours.
In John Lee’s case.
Three supportive statements in question were posted on April 13, April 17, and April 18. The consent forms were submitted on April 22, and thus, failed to meet the required 24 hours restrictions. They involved HK’s women’s table tennis team coach Li Ching, lawmaker Nelson Lam and swimmer/artist Alex Fong.
Lee asked for 3 followings from the High Court.
- to be exempted from these requirements.
- to be released from penalties that stemmed from his failure to comply with electoral regulations.
- to waive the costs of his application of this said cause.
In short, he just informed the High Court that he did what he did, but asked not to count that as a violation. Since that was not a violation, then don’t penalize his action. And since no action is needed, don’t ask him to pay any court costs either. Such arrogant!
Let’s see some previous cases.
During the last city council election, two candidates were found to violate similar offenses. They both founded not properly elected and lost their seats. The procedure was for the government to run a by-election and the voters can decide on someone else to take the post. However, the government introduced a new swear-in procedure resulting in many city councilors quitting last year, the government just leave these seats vacant.
What if there was only one candidate? In one case, the defendant claimed he overlooked it as he will win the election anyway. The judge had a few choice words toward the defendant, everyone must follow the rules no matter what, and fined him. Since he was the only candidate, he gets to hang on to the council seat.
In the last LegCo election in 2019, many familiar faces were denied to enter and some new faces surfaced to replace them. One of them was Lam, the owner of the retail chain Abouthai. He was later found to forget the submit the consent forms in time. However, the election was postponed for one year due to the pandemic. Lam claimed that it was his first time running an election and was not familiar with every detail. He simply overlooked the procedure and apologized to the judge. The judge accepted his explanation, but still handed him a fine.
There is no precedent for this offense. What Lee asked is more than acceptable. He didn’t apologize, he didn’t give an explanation, he simply asked to be exempted from everything. He was asking for a special privilege. At the time of the request, he was just an ordinary citizen like everyone else. He resigned from his post in the government so he can run for the election. He set a very bad example indeed. For a guy who always says “a crime is a crime and a violation is a violation”, this is like lifting up a stone and dropping it on his own foot.
As he was the one and only candidate, he would be (s)elected no matter what. He would do nothing and it would affect him at all. Looking back at how things unfolded makes it look even more suspicious. One media interviewed these people and talked about their vision of the future. They never really mention Lee at all or the upcoming election for that matter. They have no votes, it was that simple. However, the Lee campaign office saw the interviews and thinks their vision matched their own campaign. They re-posted on their social media and put a caption that said these people support Lee.
When a reporter checked back with two of the people being interviewed, they were surprised and didn’t confirm if they had said something like that, but pretty sure they never talk to Lee’s campaign office directly. After the news broke out, it quickly escalated and looked suspicious. To put a stop to the widespread rumor, the consent forms were handed in a few days later.
This wasn’t any help but looked even more suspicious. These forms were mostly dated back to before the interviews were taken. If they knew their interview will be used this way, why would they seem surprised when the reporter told them. If they signed the form on a different date, would that be a forge of document offense? That would be a much more serious crime!
The sad truth is that most local media were easy on this incident, or not mentioned it at all. Nobody follows up on the High Court decision. If this is swept under the carpet as if nothing ever happened, it would only further damage the already slip and sliding image of Hong Kong.
Goodbye Rule of law.
