Including clear, comprehensive definitions of consent in Hong Kong’s reform of sexual offences will provide greater clarity for all parties and better protect victims, as critics have said current interpretations rely on “common sense”, creating legal loopholes. Barrister Stephen Keung Pit-chun said on Saturday that establishing a statutory definition of consent would be key to…
The publisher of the South China Morning Post, Tammy Tam, has been appointed to Hong Kong’s Law Reform Commission as the representative for the media industry for a three-year term starting in March. Tam succeeded May Chan Suk-mei, a news director at Commercial Radio, who completed two three-year terms, with Secretary for Justice Paul Lam…
Artist and disability justice advocate Sophie Cheung Hing-yee was diagnosed with schizophrenia when she was 13. By 25, she had stopped taking medication, but her doctor would not declare her “recovered”, only that her symptoms were in “remission”. “That label … it felt like a wardrobe I could never step out of, a long, dark…
It took Eva Chan* more than a decade to find the courage to walk into a police station and report the sexual abuse she had endured for about six years at the hands of a family member she had lived with as a teenager. Reporting the abuse when she was 16 was unimaginable. At the…
Jessie Ho recalls facing traumatic questions in court that focused on tiny details of her sexual assault case four years earlier, from whether the accused had used his left or right hand to why she had not kicked or bitten him to protect herself. As the grilling went on, Ho realised the defence lawyer was…
The Mandatory Reporting of Child Abuse Ordinance becomes operational in Hong Kong on January 20, and will enhance child protections. It contains a mechanism for the early and effective detection of child abuse cases. It requires particular professionals to report if, during their work, they come to suspect a child has been suffering serious harm,…
Hong Kong has expanded the scope of an opt-in scheme that screens organisations for sex offenders to include volunteers, in a major step that will give greater protection to children and mentally incapacitated individuals. The expansion of the Sexual Conviction Record Check (SCRC) scheme took effect on Monday and was the second of the government’s…
Hong Kong may introduce laws to cover the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in sex crimes as part of an effort by the administration to amend the ordinance covering sexual offences by the end of its term, the security chief has said. Secretary for Security Chris Tang Ping-keung also revealed on Monday that the amendments…
Hong Kong should enact a “targeted law” to tackle the problem of AI-generated deepfake pornography instead of relying on legal tools designed to catch other mischief, the head of the city’s professional body for barristers has said. In an interview with the Post on Thursday, Senior Counsel Jose-Antonio Maurellet, chairman of the Hong Kong Bar…