11 Jun 2025
The application for leave was dismissed because the applicant lacked standing, failed to comply with the mandatory requirement in Order 53 r.3 to identify the decision, relief and public law grounds in Form 86, and the allegations were speculative and did not identify any arguable public law error by the Secretary.
20 Jan 2023
Court upheld the convictions: s.137(1) covers persons who derive income from facilitating or promoting prostitution where the financial gain is referable to and closely connected with prostitution (parasitic/exploitative participation); control/direction is evidential under s.137(2) not a required element; s.137(1) as applied is constitutionally valid and proportionate; appellants' constitutional challenges and arguments for a narrow construction fail.
20 Jan 2023
The Court held s.137(1) is to be construed to target parasitic/exploitative participation in the business of prostitution; s.137(2) is an evidentiary presumption (not an element); operators who run websites that facilitate and profit from advertising/promoting prostitution can lawfully be found to be living on the earnings of prostitution when the receipts are closely referable to that trade; the statutory provision does not infringe BL33, BOR14 or BOR5(1) as argued and, even if rights were engaged, the restriction is proportionate; appeals dismissed.
10 Nov 2022
Leave to appeal was granted because the Court was satisfied the questions raised are of great general public importance and are reasonably arguable even though the arguments were not considered particularly strong; costs ordered as set out.
24 Aug 2022
BL37 must be interpreted in its constitutional, legal and historical context to protect the freedom of marriage for heterosexual couples only; as lex specialis BL37 prevails over general equality and privacy provisions so BL25/HKBOR22/HKBOR14 do not independently confer a right to marry or require an alternative legal recognition for same-sex couples; HKBOR14 does not impose a positive obligation to provide civil unions or equivalent; foreign same-sex marriages need not be recognised under Hong Kong law; appeal dismissed.
10 Aug 2022
Because HSBC consented and the limited refusals by the California Court did not undermine the necessity of obtaining a complete historical record of the relevant HSBC account to trace funds and identify further defendants, the court exercised its equitable discretion to grant the Norwich Pharmacal order in the terms of the plaintiffs' draft order with modifications; comity and foreign discovery considerations were weighed but did not preclude relief on the facts; procedural irregularity in using Form 10 was noted and practitioners directed to use Form 8.
13 May 2022
The court concluded Questions 1,2,3,4(a) and 4(c) raise issues of great general or public importance concerning the interplay between Articles 3 and 14 HKBOR and granted leave to appeal to the Court of Final Appeal on those questions; Question 4(b) was refused as not reasonably arguable because adopting a criterion that "leaves no room for ambiguity" was explained as compatible with applying the "no more than necessary" proportionality scrutiny.
22 Sept 2020
The application was dismissed because habeas corpus addresses unlawful detention and the Applicant failed to establish that Ms Lo was detained or that the application was being made at her instance; the affidavit requirements under Order 54 were not satisfied and there was no proper basis for a third party to bring the application on her behalf.
3 Aug 2018
The court held the detention placement in the male Vulnerable Prisoners Unit with protective single-cell and restricted association was lawful and not discriminatory or unconstitutional given the applicant's intact male genitalia and custodial safety duties; strip and cavity searches by male officers conducted under the applicable rules were lawful and proportionate in context and the contested provisions did not require reading down to permit searches exclusively by officers of the applicant's self‑identified gender; the applicant's claims were dismissed.
22 May 2012
The court held that evidence obtained in breach of a defendant's constitutional rights may nevertheless be admitted under a discretionary balancing test: admission is permissible if it is conducive to a fair trial, reconcilable with respect for the right(s) infringed, and unlikely to encourage future breaches. Applying that test to the secretly recorded hotel-room conversation, the recording was properly admitted and the appellant's conviction was upheld.