The police ask supporters to leave at the court hearing of Tong Ying-kit, the first person charged by a new national security law near High Court, Hong Kong, China. ReUTERS Tyrone Siu File Photo Tyrone Siu File Photo,.
HONG KONG, Oct 19 Reuters - Recent court judgments have freed Hong Kong authorities to use national security powers to deploy tough colonial-era laws in the city in a crackdown against opposition groups, alarming activists and lawyers.
Police have initiated investigations into acts that took place before the national security law was imposed a year ago, despite assurances by Beijing and Hong Kong that the financial hub's legislation would not be retroactive.
The recent probes have left Pro-Democracy campaigners across the city unnerved, leaving some to fear they face prosecution for acts they believed to be legal at the time.
The past is the future, said Simon Young, a professor at the University of Hong Kong Law School. The international security law is starting to evolve and we are beginning to see a completeer evolution of this national security law and the way it allows the authorities to look at old laws and past events through a new lens.
We can see it gives them new powers and confidence to use laws that were perhaps overlooked, or seen as unenforceable. Several groups, including veteran protest organiser Civil Human Rights Front, are under investigation for acts which pre-date the security law, according to statements by senior police and reports in pro-Beijing media.
Asked about statements by Police Commissioner Raymond Siu that the Front was being investigated over marches which predate the law, a force spokesman told Reuters last month that police will continue to investigate if any organisation or person have violated security law and other Hong Kong regulations Some legal scholars and lawyers say the situation reveals the full sweep of the law - including its ability to effectively reboot laws from the British colonial era that touch on national security.
Two paragraphs in recent court judgements seem to clear the path for security investigations into past actions warn them.
One February ruling in the Court of Final Appeal suggested that the reference to acts endangering national security included violations of older law.
And a district court ruling in April noted that under the security law, the former offence of sedition was now classified as a more serious crime, potentially removing its older statute of limitations of six months.
Beijing imposed the national security law on Hong Kong last year, seeking to punish what it sees as subversion, secession, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces.
But fresh investigations into acts that predate the law's Imposition appear to be triggering sometimes overlooked legislation on crimes like sedition, a law governing private groups and even legislation against espionage, criminal lawyers say.
Those powers include the right for national security police to conduct searches and electronic surveillance, such as phone tapping, without going to court or asking a judge for a warrant.
Asked about investigations into specific offences and the impact of the court rulings, a police spokesperson said they would not comment on older cases.
In conducting any operation, police officers will act on the basis of actual circumstances and according to law, the spokesperson said.
When the Law was adopted, senior Chinese and Hong Kong officials repeatedly stressed its application would not be retroactively introduced.
In June 2020, Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam told the UN Human Rights Council that the law would be essential to tackle a gaping hole in national security but the presumption of innocence would be maintained and the law would have no retrospective effect.
Lam also told the UN that it would only affect an extremely small minority of Hong Kong.
Zhang Xiaoming, deputy director of the State Council's Hong Kong and Macau Affairs OfficeMacau Affairs Office, said on 1 July last year that the law is not retroactive Security provisions in the older laws would be used to punish crimes that have already been committed which endanger national security, he said.
The intensifying crackdown is forcing some prominent groups to disband, including the Civil Rights Front. Others urgently shred files, and delete photos and online material, saying they fear even once-innocuous details could be used against them under Hong Kong s evolving security regime.
The recent past is an authoritarian goldmine, said one private investigator who has been helping some groups to protect themselves. Essential rights and protections will count for little as national security police build their cases by going forward as well as backwards.