//Many have asked, “whose side is the Bar on?” We owe no affiliation to any side. We are independent, not only from the Establishment but also from party political forces irrespective of their leadership or pedigree. Our independence makes our views on Rule of Law all the more valuable and balanced. We are not the “Reserves Team” of political parties who have – for many years – wrongly assumed that they could call upon the Bar to readily rally for their political acts from a “Rule of Law angle”. We can criticize the Establishment, as well as those with a “political halo”. Sometimes it takes more courage to criticize the latter than the former. I am quite sure that despite what I have unequivocally said about Rule of Law, Judicial Independence, the White Paper and the NPCSC Decision, there are still people who would express their discontent in a high profiled manner, simply because we have not said everything in the way they had wanted us to say, or because we had dared to criticize them. Do we blindly stand for one side, or the other, or do we stand only for the Rule of Law? You’ll be the judge. Many point to the NPCSC decision as the cause of the problem. Some point to police misconduct (such as use of tear gas on 28th September, which the Bar has condemned) and argued that “they are wrong first and they are worse”. However, two wrongs do not make a right. There can be no “tit-fortat”. That others have acted wrongly, harshly, or unsatisfactorily does not mean that you can thereby legitimize your own excesses. That said, it would be self-deceiving to gloss over the deficiencies of the NPCSC decision and the underlying discontent by repeating the official classification that the Movement was “unlawful”. The present conundrum can only be solved with enlightenment and political wisdom by all parties concerned. The Umbrella Movement had created a lot of “gods”4. There are no gods in the legal world. But there is a goddess – the blindfolded goddess Themis, holding the scales of justice.//
Posted on: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 02:25:32 +0000
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