Some Hong Kong lawyers linked to a now-defunct humanitarian fund that helped arrested 2019 protesters have seen complaints made to the national security police substantiated. They may now face suspension.
The Law Society of Hong Kong President Chan Chak-ming told reporters on Saturday that it had received 16 complaints in relation to the 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund, with 10 investigations already concluded.
“The 10 cases… include unsubstantiated cases and substantiated cases,” Chan said in Cantonese. “For the substantiated cases, there will be different levels of penalty.”
The most serious cases will be referred to a disciplinary tribunal, Chan added, which has the power to order fines and suspend a solicitor according to the society’s procedures.
The Law Society is a professional body representing around 11,000 solicitors.
Its announcement came almost two years after national security police arrested five trustees of the 612 Humanitarian Fund, which provided support for protesters during the anti-extradition protests and unrest in 2019. The fund had already ceased operations more than six months before the arrests.
Police said at the time that it had lodged a complaint to the Law Society and the Hong Kong Bar Association as a criminal investigation revealed that solicitors and barristers were “suspected of professional misconduct.”
The five trustees who were arrested – Cardinal Joseph Zen, ex-lawmakers Margaret Ng and Cyd Ho, singer Denise Ho and scholar Hui Po-keung – were accused of conspiring to collude with foreign forces. They have not been charged.
Bar Association investigation
A day before the Law Society met reporters, the Hong Kong Bar Association told the press that it had completed its investigation of 38 barristers who provided legal assistance in cases backed by the protest fund.
None of the 38 barristers were found to have engaged in professional misconduct, chairperson Victor Dawes said.
They were earlier accused of violating the profession’s code of conduct by bypassing solicitors representing defendants and collecting remuneration directly from the 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund.
Speaking at the Saturday press conference, the Law Society’s Chan said the two professional bodies were very different by nature.
While barristers do not interact with clients directly, solicitors do and are responsible for conducting due diligence checks per Hong Kong’s anti-money laundering laws and the Law Society’s guidelines, Chan said.
The direction of the different investigations were therefore different, Chan added.
The 612 Humanitarian Fund was among the dozens of civil society organisations to shut down amid Beijing’s imposition of a national security law in Hong Kong. The 2020 law, which followed months of anti-extradition protests and unrest in 2019, criminalised secession, subversion, terrorism and foreign collusion, with offenders facing up to life imprisonment.
The fund’s announcement to cease operations came after Chinese state-backed media in the city urged authorities to investigate it for illegal activity.
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