A Hong Kong court has rejected this Saturday the request of former press union leader Ronson Chan to file a final appeal against his conviction for obstructing the Police, for which he had to spend five days in prison.
High Court judge Lily Wong had already refused last Friday to authorize the former president of the Hong Kong Journalists Association to take his case to the competent higher judicial instances.
Chan was seeking to overturn the sentence handed down following an incident that occurred in September 2022, when he refused to show his identity document to a plainclothes officer while reporting on a meeting of the owners’ committee in the Mong Kok neighborhood.
The journalist was found guilty in September 2023 and sentenced to five days in jail, although he was granted bail while the appeal was processed. Despite this, he ended up going into prison after losing the appeal, which was also decided in May by Judge Wong.
Chan’s defense requested a new appeal before the Supreme Court, questioning whether the Police internal regulations that grant officers “autonomous powers” to require the identification of protesters are of general importance to the legal order.
Wong held that Chinese legislation is “unequivocal” and that the arguments put forward by Chan’s lawyers overlook explicit legal provisions.
“Therefore, I do not consider that the argument advanced is a genuine legal argument. Even if it were, I would consider that it is not reasonably defensible,” the magistrate said in her ruling.
Despite the decision issued this Friday, the former president of the Journalists Association still has the option of seeking leave to appeal directly before the Committee of Last Resort.
Chan, who led the union between 2021 and 2024, was approached by a plainclothes Police officer who alleged “suspicious” conduct in order to require the documentation, and he was ultimately detained after refusing to identify himself despite repeated warnings.
The Association has expressed its “deep sorrow” for the defeat of the appeal decided in May and for the serving of the five-day prison sentence. In turn, the organization Reporters Without Borders (RSF) declared itself “outraged” at the jailing of the reporter.