There was much activity in the realm of judicial review earlier this month, with a spate of high-profile cases in one week. On February 18, a two-day judicial review over the constitutionality of the Broadcasting Authority's censure of a RTHK television show on gay lovers kicked off. On the same day, Mr Justice Michael Hartmann also threw out a legal challenge mounted by six asylum seekers, ruling that Hong Kong was not bound by the international principle against returning refugees to a place where their safety might be in danger.
Three days later, 'Long Hair' Leung Kwok-hung applied for legal aid to launch a judicial review in a case concerning the constitutionality of a law that gave the chief executive unfettered power to control who can use the airwaves.
Then the next day, on February 22, Mr Justice Hartmann presided over another judicial review initiated by a Congolese refugee who argued that the government should not have prosecuted him for illegal entry while the UN High Commissioner for Refugees was processing his claim of being a victim of torture.
Judicial review gives the courts the power to review the legality, rationality and reasonableness of the actions of public bodies. But there is now growing debate over their application, as figures from the Justice Department show that the number of judicial reviews has increased substantially over the past decade. In 1988, there were 29 applications. Since 2001, that number has hovered at about 140 each year.
More importantly, the number of cases involving the government rose from less than 100 in 2004 to 130 in 2005 and 128 in 2006.
Statistics from the Legal Aid Department reveal that judicial review is even more popular than can be seen from the Justice Department figures. Between 2004 and last year, the number of applications for legal aid for judicial review surged from 132 to 212. A substantial portion of the applications were turned down: a mere 32 out of 185 applications for legal aid were accepted in 2005-06, and only 73 out of 212 applications were approved in 2006-07.
