This Week in Asian Law

May 22-28


China

Hong Kong

  • For the second year in a row, police banned the annual June 4 vigil held to commemorate victims of the 1989 army attack on protesters in and around Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. Hong Kong had been the only place in China where public commemorations of the bloody event could be held. Police said the vigil would violate COVID-19 prevention measures.

  • Hong Kong passed a landmark bill drastically overhauling its electoral system this week, following the Decision of the PRC’s National People’s Congress on Improving the Electoral System of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region issued in March. The new law expands the Election Committee by 300 seats to 1,500, and expands the legislature to 90 delegates from the current 70. Several opposition politicians expressed hesitancy about running for office under the new rules, which make it nearly impossible for pro-democracy candidates to stand.

  • Ten pro-democracy leaders received prison terms for their roles in organizing and participating in a banned protest on National Day in 2019. Hong Kong protest coalition leader Figo Chan and ex-lawmakers Lee Cheuk-yan, Albert Ho, and “Long Hair” Leung Kwok-hung each were given two concurrent 18-month jail terms. Apple Daily owner Jimmy Lai, former Democratic Party chair Yeung Sum, and ex-lawmaker Cyd Ho each were sentenced to 14 months, while Richard Tsoi of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China and ex-lawmaker Sin Chung-kai were sentenced to 14 months with a two-year suspension. Activist Avery Ng was sentenced to 14 months for organizing the protest and nine months for taking part, and will serve 14 months and 14 days. The parties described the sentences as unusually severe.

  • The High Court explained that it denied bail in April to democrat Claudia Mo because of her messages to foreign journalists criticizing the loss of freedoms in Hong Kong. Judge Esther Toh wrote in her judgment: “I consider that there are insufficient grounds for believing that the Applicant will not continue to commit acts endangering national security if bail is granted.” Mo was among 47 democrats taken into custody in late February and charged with “conspiracy to commit subversion” under the National Security Law for organizing legislative primaries.

  • The High Court rejected a request for judicial review sought by 803 Funds, backed by former Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying, which tried to challenge the failure of the building department to enforce the law against an illegal structure at former legislator Claudia Mo’s luxury home. The court ruled that the company lacked sufficient interest in the case or special knowledge or expertise in relevant policies.

  • Migrant domestic workers have been singled out for strict public health measures as government considers them at “high risk” for the coronavirus, although actual infection rates are low. On April 30, the government required all 370,000 migrant domestic workers to be tested and vaccinated in order to renew their visas. The vaccination requirement was later withdrawn after a public backlash but the testing requirement remained. Although Hong Kong enacted an anti-discrimination law 12 years ago, enforcement remains an issue.

  • A bill has been introduced that would allow authorities to investigate wildlife smuggling under the Organized and Serious Crimes Ordinance. The move would facilitate more in-depth investigations, freezing of assets, and application of harsher penalties. Hong Kong is a major hub of illegal trade in endangered plants and animals. To date, most prosecutions have been of low-level smugglers rather than the heads of criminal syndicates.

Japan

Koreas

Taiwan

  • The Taiwan Intellectual Property Office of the Ministry of Economic Affairs has published draft amendments to the Trademark Act for public inspection. A summary of the public feedback is here (in Chinese), and highlights of the primary draft amendments are here.

  • Taiwan’s Constitutional Court upheld the constitutionality of Article 91 of the Copyright Act, which criminalizes copyright infringements involving the sale or public distribution of reproductions on optical disks and establishes a minimum six-month prison term. The petitioner was sentenced to prison for selling copyrighted Japanese pornographic DVDs. His lawyer argued that the punishment was disproportionate to the crime, and noted that other copyright crimes do not have minimum prison terms. In its Constitutional Interpretation No. 804 (in Chinese), the court reasoned that criminalizing the reproduction of copyrighted materials “clearly conforms with the principle of the law,” and that minimum sentencing for pirating disks “does not violate the guarantees of personal freedom and equality stipulated in Article 8 of the Constitution.”