Hong Kong's top court ruled on Monday that a British lawyer can represent pro-democracy tycoon Jimmy Lai in a national security trial, rejecting an appeal by the government to bar foreigner lawyers from such cases.
Lai is perhaps Hong Kong's most prominent critic of China's Communist Party leaders including Xi Jinping, and Hong Kong's Department of Justice made repeated attempts to block British barrister, Timothy Owen, from representing him.
But the panel of three judges; Chief Justice Andrew Cheung, Roberto Ribeiro and Joseph Fok, in a written judgment, criticised the Justice Department for "raising undefined and unsubstantiated issues said to involve national security which were not mentioned or explored in the Courts below."Lai's lawyer, Robert Pang, had earlier defended Owen's role in the case.
Owen's application to represent Lai -- who ran the now shuttered pro-democracy Apple Daily newspaper -- had been approved by the Court of First Instance, and upheld by the Court of Appeal twice following repeated appeals by the Justice Department and the city's top legal official, Paul Lam.
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