Club Lunch: The Challenges Facing the Hong Kong Courts Now And In The Future

Monday, April 18, 2016
12:30pm for 12:45pm – lunch
1:10pm – address
1st Floor

Speaker: Justice Kemal Bokhary
Non-Permanent Judge, The Court of Final Appeal

The speaker feels that one of the two fundamental challenges facing the Hong Kong courts now and in the future is to deliver – and demonstrate that they are delivering – affordable and readily intelligible justice according to law without undue delay. That is common to courts everywhere in the world. The other fundamental challenge pertains to our courts in particular. It is to play their part in making the “one country, two systems” principle work. Already – and perhaps far more so in the future – this will have to be done while the quest for democracy continues and in the midst of much social discontent, some of it spilling over into civil disobedience and even violence in the streets.

Mr. Justice Bokhary joined the Hong Kong Judiciary as a Judge of the High Court in 1989. He was appointed a Justice of Appeal in 1993. From 1997 to 2012, he served as a Permanent Judge of the Court of Final Appeal. Since retirement as a Permanent Judge, he has published Recollections, The Law is a Crocodile and Crocodile-at-Law, reflecting upon his career in the law. He  became a Non-Permanent Judge of the Court of Final Appeal in 2012.