It is very often said that the common law is one of Hong Kong’s greatest assets. It provides us with a corpus of law which shares common origins with those of many established jurisdictions. It enables conversations to take place between our legal professionals and with our counterparts elsewhere.
As the only common law jurisdiction with both Chinese and English as official languages used in court, Hong Kong is the connection between China and the common law world.
But what exactly is the Hong Kong common law?
The term “the common law” can refer to a number of different things. It takes its meaning from context. One meaning of the “common law”, in particular when juxtaposed against statutes or written law, is the body of rules derived from case precedents.
Case law is a very important source of law in common law systems. It took me quite some time as a young law student to come to terms with this. Essentially, the idea is that written laws will not cover all aspects of human activity, and where the answer to a case is not provided by a written law, judges – as organs of the state exercising coercive power to adjudicate disputes – must decide what is right.
They explain their reasons in judgments, and courts which come after them will endeavour to ensure that the law is coherent and consistent, so that what was regarded as a good reason for a conclusion in a previous case should also be a good reason for the same conclusion in subsequent cases.
