Court grants appeals in Rafael Hui misconduct case
Hui was convicted over taking HK$8.5 million from a tycoon shortly before being sworn in as chief secretary
The Court of Appeal has green-lit a final appeal for former chief secretary Rafael Hui Si-yan, ruling that his case has one legal point of “great and general importance”.
The point in question concerns the count of conspiracy to commit misconduct in public office – specifically Hui acting in favour of Sun Hung Kai Properties former co-chairman Thomas Kwok Ping-kwong, former executive Thomas Chan Kui-yuen and a former stock exchange official Francis Kwan Hung-sang.
According to the judgment, the only valid question is whether that offence required “that the conspirators intended and agreed that, in return for a payment to be made to a person whom they knew was about to become chief secretary of the HKSAR, whilst in public office and as such the recipient would be and remain favourably disposed to the payer or at the direction of the payer”.
The judgment, from Mr Justice Wally Yeung Chun-kuen, Mr Justice Michael Lunn and Mr Justice Derek Pang Wai-cheong, dismissed all other grounds for appeal. The defendants can still argue those points at the Court of Final Appeal.
In late 2014 Hui was convicted for taking HK$8.5 million from Kwok through two middlemen shortly before he was sworn in as chief secretary in 2005, and HK$11.182 million from former SHKP executive Thomas Chan Kui-yuen and Francis Kwan Hung-sang after leaving office.
