說毒舌真話的港產片

港產片「毒舌大狀」上畫短短8天，香港票房已收超過5千萬，幾乎可以肯定該片將破香港有史以來的票房紀錄。「毒舌大狀」的空前成功，除了借助賀歲檔期的優勢和子華神的個人魅力，以及一眾演員的超水準演出之外，令香港人難以抵擋的相信是劇中強大的感染力和極具時代性的對白。

從故事結構而言，可以簡單直接的形容為「審死官」的現代版，故事描述大狀林涼水（黃子華飾）如何良心發現，然後拼命為無辜的曾潔兒（王丹妮飾）辯護，最後為她沉冤得雪。橋段都不外乎是大狀巧破冤案，在法庭上以滔滔雄辯，教訓那些恃勢凌人的權貴，結局大快人心的標準公式。劇中的董大狀（黃敏德飾）為權貴服務，一臉鄙視的表情在法庭上諷刺林涼水：「Let me tell you my favourite quote, “We would like to believe we are all equal, but the truth is we are not, and we never will be.” The jury may not know about the law, but I thought you’ve been to law school, haven’t you, Mr. Lam?」，林涼水的機智回應「你黐到埋去人哋嗰度，你就覺得自己同人哋同一個 level 呀？ May I quote from your favourite quote? “You would like to believe you are their equals, but the truth is you are not, and never will be.”」令在場的觀眾拍案叫絕！在賀歲檔期上映，新年流流，大家看得開開心心，也許是票房收入可觀的原因之一。但在8天內破5千萬又豈僅是讓觀眾看得開心那麼簡單！

主控官金遠山（謝君豪飾）在庭上憤斥權貴浪費法庭時間，林涼水在結案陳詞中反問今天的法庭是否還代表正義和公道？ 看到這裡，不少港人不禁聯想起這兩年以來，多少人被起訴、被判刑，法庭代表的是真正的公義？還是維護當權者的利益？以前立法必須經過諮詢、辯論、磋商，有正反意見，現在被完善了的議會內只有紅色的五光十色！片中至震撼的莫過於林涼水的一句「everything is wrong 」，所謂公開的法庭竟然不見傳媒蹤影，要說的香港人「明就明」了！難怪這部港產片可以創出如此驕人成績！

2023年1月28日

The Inefficient Court

The first trial under the Beijing's imposed national security law has attracted overwhelming attention of the city. Today is the fourteenth day of the on-going trial. Discussions of the transcriptions have appeared in online media. The lengthy debates between the prosecutor and the expert witnesses have been most educational, and in a way quite entertaining*. The focus has been the meaning of the slogan "Liberate HK, revolution of our times" and its relation with separatism or independence, which is crucial to establishing the intention of the defendant in "inciting others to overthrow the regime", a speech crime allegedly committed by the 24-year-old suspect who carried a flag with the slogan in public. The world heard how the two professors analyzed the words in multi-dimensional contexts involving Chinese history, world history, linguistics, social science, media and communications, and even psychology. And the courtroom became a classroom where the professor explained to students (the humble judges, counsels, and spectators) the statistical concept of 'correlation coefficient' and how it was used to assess the correlation between the slogan and separatism.

Hong Kong is still lucky, having its court open and allowing debates to be heard by the public. Although conviction seems likely, based on the way this Beijing imposed 'law' is written, members of the public could still follow the trial and make their own judgement on this speech crime.

Very soon, the government will become impatient watching such trials and being embarrassed by the prosecutor's lack of better logic. When it has come to a point where this British style common law practice is no longer tolerable to Beijing or simply not efficient enough to achieve a 99% conviction rate, trials in Hong Kong will rapidly adopt the more efficient Chinese way: suspects will be arrested, denied bail by default, locked up, treated (in ways nobody knows exactly what happens), and made to publish an open confession admitting all alleged offences. Courts won't conduct open trials but claim to act according to the law. Of course, everything complies with the law. Members of the public would only need to be informed of the verdict.

Hong Kong will be ruled according to the law (依法辦事), though not necessarily abiding by the rule of law（法治).

July 15, 2021

______________________
*第 14 日審訊　辯方專家證人李立峯繼續作供
**選櫻桃的人 – 譚蕙芸

National Security is Mandatory to Every Nation! Why Double Standard?

This is seemingly the most logical question any pro-establishment politician or member of the pro-government camp would put to the untamed anti-everything-China yellow camp. True, the US and other western countries all have their national security laws. So, why are you applying a different standard to your own country?

But if you put the implementation of national security in the Chinese context, applying a double standard could be fully legitimate and even necessary. Track records of law enforcement in China have already proven how violation of national security laws can be a wild-card allegation for anyone who challenges the central leadership, and how far the way trials are conducted in a Chinese court is from the civilized world, not to mention the candid trials and deprivation of rights to properly defend against the allegation. The independence of the judicial system is not even questionable; it simply does not exist in China as the judicial system is supposed to serve and collaborate with the government. It is not difficult to understand the rationale behind choosing specific judges by the chief executive to handle cases brought by the new security legislation and how unimportant the perception of conflict of interest is for China. (Some people would have deliberately confused the titular role of the chief executive in appointing judges with choosing judges for trials.) Ignoring these fundamental differences, one has no basis on which to discuss whether the same standard is applicable to assess even the reasonableness of establishing and implementing the same Chinese national security law in Hong Kong.

When a US citizen criticizes the government, chants anti-government slogans, or demands the president to step down, he does not violate any national security law. But when a Chinese citizen does the same, he can be prosecuted for "endangering national security" or "inciting subversion of state power", and the conviction rate is 99%. The root difference is that an American can vote the government out, but a Chinese must accept the government or he will face prosecution. Environmentalist Tan Zuoren, who advocated an inquiry into the substandard school buildings causing deaths of hundreds of students during the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, was sentenced to 5 years in prison for "inciting subversion of state power". Food safety worker Zhao Lianhai, who was also the father of one of the many victims of the melamine-tainted milk products, was sentenced to 2½ years imprisonment for "disturbing social order". Human rights lawyer Huang Quanzhang was held incommunicado (virtually disappeared) for three years since August 2015 and was put on trial for the wild-card allegation of "subversion of state power" in August 2018, and released in April 2020. The case of Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo needs no elaboration, he was convicted for making a political reform proposal. None of these cases, from arrest, trial to conviction, was compliant with western standards.

Double standard or not? It's up to you to judge!

June 24, 2020

________________ PS: All discussions now will remain purely academic, as the new national security laws will be implemented anyway, and the only hope we have is the reduced level of arbitrariness and better transparency under the common law system if trials were still allowed to be conducted in a Hong Kong court.

「一地兩檢、逃犯條例」— 你究竟害怕什麼？

去年的「一地兩檢」、今年的「逃犯條例修訂」弄得立法會一團糟！沒錯！香港人對大陸的執法方式和司法制度存有戒心，故對在香港境內設立內地執法區懷有恐懼之心，實在不難理解。同樣道理，移送疑犯返回大陸受審，港人聞風喪膽，實屬正常。

理性一點，在西九高鐵站內設立內地執法區，就只有乘坐高鐵前往內地的旅客才會受到影響。若然你不打算往大陸，哪來西九高鐵站幹什麼？事實上，如果你選擇乘高鐵往大陸，一地兩檢只會減省你在兩邊口岸區所需的檢查時間。若然你永不踏足大陸的話，那乜地乜檢又與你何干？

「逃犯條例修訂」亦如是，假若你從來沒有在大陸犯過案，遣返逃犯又與你何干？不過，反對的人總可以扯上某些政治議題，例如擔心「逃犯條例」會被利用作為迫害異見人士的工具；或者，多年前在內地行賄疏通，怕被秋後算賬；又或者，某年某月得罪某某國內權貴，怕被插贓嫁禍。問題都是源於對中共政權的恐懼，而實質上「逃犯條例」對於一般市民的生活而言，根本扯不上半點關係！

雖然「逃犯條例修訂」對一般市民的直接影響輕微，但由於修訂將會容許內地法律伸延至香港，繞過香港法庭和立法會，直接遞補和移交疑犯。香港將會失去作為一個中國城市的獨特性，外國投資者對香港法制的的信心下降，撤資的可能性極高。「逃犯條例修訂」一旦通過，除非中國在法治制度上有根本性的改變，香港的國際金融地位將會蕩然無存！

2019年5月21日