Wikipedia

Wally Yeung

In this Chinese name, the family name is Yeung.

Wally Yeung Chun-kuen GBS (Chinese: 楊振權; born 1950) is the Commissioner on Interception of Communications and Surveillance and a retired Hong Kong judge.

The Honourable Mr Justice
Wally Yeung Chun-kuen
GBS
楊振權
Commissioner on Interception of Communications and Surveillance
Incumbent
Assumed office
17 August 2021
Preceded byAzizul Rahman Suffiad
Designated National Security Law Judge
Incumbent
Assumed office
2021
Appointed byCarrie Lam
Vice President of the Court of Appeal of the High Court
In office
25 July 2011 – 16 August 2021
Justice of Appeal of the Court of Appeal of the High Court
In office
6 May 2002 – 24 July 2011
Judge of the Court of First Instance of the High Court
In office
1995–2002
District Judge
In office
1987–1995
Magistrate
In office
1986–1987
Personal details
Born1950 (age 73–74)
Hong Kong
NationalityChinese
Alma materUniversity of Hong Kong

Education

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Yeung received an LLB in 1974 and a PCLL in 1975 from the University of Hong Kong.[1] During his studies, he was a member of St. John's College.[2]

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Yeung was called to the Hong Kong Bar in 1976 and was a barrister in private practice until 1985.[1] He joined the bench as a Permanent Magistrate in 1985 and was promoted to the District Court two years later.[1]

In 1995, Yeung was appointed as a Judge of the High Court of Justice (known as the Court of First Instance of the High Court after the transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong in 1997).[1] He was elevated to the Court of Appeal on 6 May 2002, along with fellow Court of First Instance judge Maria Yuen.[1][3][4]

In 2007, Yeung took over as Chairman of the Commission of Inquiry investigating alleged government interference into academic freedom at the Hong Kong Institute of Education, after Mr Justice Woo Kwok-hing had recused himself to avoid the appearance of partiality. Yeung was appointed because, unlike Woo, he was acquainted with neither Arthur Li nor Fanny Law.[5]

Yeung was appointed as Vice President of the Court of Appeal on 25 July 2011.[6][7][8]

In December 2015, on reaching the retirement age of 65, on the recommendation of the Judicial Officers Recommendation Commission, Yeung's term of office was extended for 3 years.[9] In December 2018, his term of office was extended for another 2 years,[10] followed by a further extension until 16 August 2021.[11]

Yeung was awarded the Gold Bauhinia Star on 1 July 2021, in recognition of his dedicated and distinguished service in the Judiciary over the preceding 36 years.[12][13]

On 23 July 2021, Yeung's appointment by the Chief Executive, on the recommendation of the Chief Justice, as the Commissioner on Interception of Communications and Surveillance was announced. Yeung's appointment took effect on 17 August 2021 (upon his retirement from the bench) for a term of 3 years.[14][15]

Major cases

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Yeung was one of the pioneers of judicial bilingualism in Hong Kong: in the December 1995 case Sun Er-jo v. Lo Ching & Ors, Case No. 3283/1995, he was the first High Court judge to conduct a civil hearing using Cantonese as the language of the courtroom, and the first to use written Chinese to deliver a judgment.[16]

A more controversial ruling of Yeung's was R. v Tam Yuk-ha, HCMA 933/1996. Tam had placed a table on the pavement outside her store, and was prosecuted for making an unauthorised "addition" to her premises after having been granted a licence, contrary to Food Business (Urban Council) By-Laws (Cap. 132Y) § 35(a). Yeung overturned the magistrate's ruling of guilt because the Chinese version of the by-law, unlike the English version, did not prohibit "additions" in general but only "building additional construction or building works" (his back-translation of the term "增建工程" used in the Chinese version), and in the event of inability to reconcile the two equally authentic versions of the by-law, he was obligated to choose the interpretation which favoured the defendant.[17] In HKSAR v Tam Yuk-ha, HCMA 1385/1996, the Court of Appeal overturned Yeung's ruling and reinstated Tam's conviction on the grounds that the term in question did not merely refer to "construction" but any "erection" of additional works.[18]

Yeung would go on to become the chairman of the Subcommittee on the Translation of Case Precedents, which oversaw a three-month pilot project from January to April 1999 to produce Chinese translations of twenty-five judgments of precedential value identified by the Judiciary, the Bar Association, the Law Society, and the Department of Justice.[16]

Occupy sentence

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Main article: 2017 imprisonment of Hong Kong democracy activists

On 17 August 2017, Yeung and two other judges of the Court of Appeal, Derek Pang and Jeremy Poon, sentenced the three main leaders in the 2014 Hong Kong protests, Joshua Wong, Alex Chow, and Nathan Law, to six to eight months in prison in the case of Secretary for Justice v. Wong Chi Fung and others, CAAR 4/2016; the trio had stormed a fenced-off government forecourt known as "Civic Square" which triggered the 79-day Occupy protests. The ruling sparked widespread fear over Hong Kong's judicial independence, as the Court of Appeal overturned the more lenient sentence of the Court of First Instance after the government pushed for harsher punishments.[19]

Others

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In 1999, Yeung heard a major judicial review case relating to the right of abode in Hong Kong, Lau Kong-yung & Ors v. Director of Immigration, HCAL 20/1999. He found that the seventeen mainland-born applicants were not entitled to the right of abode by virtue of their parents' Hong Kong permanent resident status until they had obtained Certificates of Entitlement, and thus refused to overturn the removal order issued against them by the Director of Immigration.[20]

Public office

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Yeung was a Fellow of the College Council of St. John's College, University of Hong Kong, and was subsequently the President of the College Council from 2013 to 2021.[21][22]

Yeung is President of the Society of Rehabilitation and Crime Prevention of Hong Kong.[23]

Personal life

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Yeung was born in Hong Kong. He is married to Michelle, with whom he has a son Yeung Jun Wei Wilson (楊浚瑋, born 1991).[citation needed]

References

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  1. ^ a b c d e "Judicial Appointment". Government of Hong Kong. 3 May 2002.
  2. ^ "Prominent Members". St. John's College, University of Hong Kong.
  3. ^ "G.N. 2709" Hong Kong Government Gazette (No. 19, Vol. 6, 10 May 2002)
  4. ^ "杨振权袁家宁获委任为香港高等法院上诉法庭法官" [Yeung Chun-kuen, Yuen Ka-ning appointed Justices of the Court of Appeal of the High Court of Hong Kong]. Xinhua News. 3 May 2002. Archived from the original on 2 June 2002. Retrieved 7 June 2013.
  5. ^ "楊振權接棒查教院風波" [Yeung Chun-kuen picks up baton in investigation of Institute of Education scandal]. Apple Daily. 21 March 2007. Archived from the original on 23 March 2014. Retrieved 7 June 2013.
  6. ^ "Judicial appointment". Government of Hong Kong. 21 July 2011.
  7. ^ "G.N. 4846" Hong Kong Government Gazette (No. 30, Vol. 15, 29 July 2011)
  8. ^ "杨振权获委任香港高等法院上诉法庭副庭长" [Yeung Chun-kuen appointed Deputy Chief of the Court of Appeal of the High Court of Hong Kong]. China News Service. 22 July 2011. Retrieved 5 July 2021.
  9. ^ "G.N. 9979" Hong Kong Government Gazette (No. 53, Vol. 19, 31 December 2015)
  10. ^ "G.N. 4" Hong Kong Government Gazette (No. 1, Vol. 23, 4 January 2019)
  11. ^ "G.N. 7597" Hong Kong Government Gazette (No. 53, Vol. 24, 31 December 2020)
  12. ^ "G.N.(E.) 410" Hong Kong Government Gazette (No. 175, Vol. 25 (Extraordinary), 1 July 2021)
  13. ^ "Appendix: 2021 Honours List" (PDF). Government of Hong Kong. 1 July 2021.
  14. ^ "Government announces appointment of Commissioner under Interception of Communications and Surveillance Ordinance". www.info.gov.hk. Government of Hong Kong. 23 July 2021.
  15. ^ "G.N. 4411" Hong Kong Government Gazette (No. 29, Vol. 25, 23 July 2021)
  16. ^ a b Poon, Emily Wai-Yee (2006). "The Translation of Judgments". Meta: Translators' Journal. 51 (3): 551–569. doi:10.7202/013559ar. Retrieved 9 June 2013.551-569&rft.date=2006&rft_id=info:doi/10.7202/013559ar&rft.aulast=Poon&rft.aufirst=Emily Wai-Yee&rft_id=http://www.erudit.org/revue/meta/2006/v/n3/013559ar.html&rfr_id=info:sid/en.wikipedia.org:Wally Yeung" class="Z3988">
  17. ^ Ng, Eva N. S. (2009). "The tension between adequacy and acceptability in legal interpreting and translation". In Hale, Sandra Beatriz; Ozolins, Uldis; Stern, Ludmilla (eds.). Quality in Interpreting: a Shared Responsibility. John Benjamins Publishing. ISBN 9789027224316.
  18. ^ Yeung, Matthew. "Assessing Parallel Texts in Legal Translation". The Journal of Specialised Translation. 1 (1). Retrieved 7 June 2013.
  19. ^ "Court finally releases English version of judgment that jailed Hong Kong activists Joshua Wong, Nathan Law and Alex Chow". South China Morning Post. 30 August 2017.
  20. ^ Landler, Mark (31 March 1999). "Hong Kong Court Tells 17 They Must Return to China". The New York Times. Retrieved 7 June 2013.
  21. ^ "College Management". St. John's College, University of Hong Kong. Archived from the original on 5 August 2014.
  22. ^ "College Management". St. John's College, University of Hong Kong. Archived from the original on 6 March 2021.
  23. ^ "Corporate Governance". Society of Rehabilitation and Crime Prevention, Hong Kong.
Legal offices
New creation Designated National Security Law Judge
2021–Present 		Incumbent
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