Introduction to Judicial Review in Hong Kong
![handle is hein.journals/judire8 and id is 109 raw text is: [2003] JR
Introduction to Judicial Review in
Hong Kong
Kate Olley*
Landmark Chambers
Constitutional and Administrative Law List
1. All judicial review cases in Hong Kong used to be assigned to the four most senior
High Court judges. In February 1997, however, Hong Kong's Administrative Law List
(now called the Constitutional and Administrative Law List) was established. The
volume of public law litigation in Hong Kong has increased greatly since the late 1980s,
such that the situation just before the List was created was that there was neither a
sufficient pool of judges, nor were the cases necessarily decided by those judges with
particular experience in the field.
2. Cases which go to the List are applications for judicial review, habeas corpus, election
petitions or such civil cases which raise an issue for determination under the Basic Law
or Bill of Rights and which a judge certifies as suitable for transfer to the List. There is
a judge in charge of the List' and a panel of seven first instance judges nominated by
the Chief Justice, though none does exclusively judicial review work.
3. The growth in public law litigation has continued since the resumption of PRC sover-
eignty in 1997. In 1997 and 1999 there were respectively 119 and 162 cases in the
Constitutional and Administrative Law List. This further increased to 2,767 cases in
2000 and 3,869 in 2001, although the right of abode challenges taking place at that time
are a significant cause of that upsurge.
Procedure and principles
4. The rules of procedure are found in Ord. 53 of the Rules of the High Court (Cap 4A of
the High Court Ordinance). This is in fact the same as the old RSC Ord. 53 in England,
and indeed a glance at the notes to the Hong Kong Ord. 53 reveals the citation of a large
number of English authorities. However this has not evolved into an equivalent of CPR
Part 54. Although there is sometimes discussion amongst practitioners in Hong Kong
about the potential benefits of introducing the CPR into civil litigation in the region,
there are no immediate plans to do so.
5. Thus, judicial review procedure in Hong Kong has not only derived from the old
English rules, but presently preserves them in time. Of course, the applicable principles
and remedies are nonetheless the same as those here, making the Hong Kong jurispru-
dence particularly accessible to English practitioners, and in fact more assistance might
be derived from it than at present. In Hong Kong itself the courts are very open to the
jurisprudence of other jurisdictions.
The author is indebted to Alexander Stock of Temple Chambers, Hong Kong in the preparation of this article.
The author spent three months as a Pegasus Scholar at the Hong Kong Court of Appeal.
1 Presently Hartmann J, succeeding Stock JA after his appointment to the Court of Appeal.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/judire8&div=22&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Introduction to Judicial Review in Hong Kong
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