Hong Kong Case Law: Decisions & Judgments | LexChat

Hong Kong Case Law

Unconscious bias

  • 17 Nov 2025

    P1 AND ANOTHER v. D

    Citation
    [2025] HKCFI 5584
    Court
    Court of First Instance
    Case number
    HCCT59/2023

    The court refused leave because the proposed appeal lacked a reasonable prospect of success: the judge applied the correct legal tests, considered procedural and bias complaints together, found no evidentiary basis that the Tribunal was unconsciously or apparently biased by exposure to WPP material, correctly treated the Tribunal's assurances and the materiality/context of WPP as relevant, and concluded the scientific literature and the question of appointing an expert did not establish any arguable error warranting appellate intervention.

  • 21 Jun 1996

    R. v. HO CHIU HUNG

    Citation
    R. v. HO CHIU HUNG
    Court
    Court of First Instance
    Case number
    HCMA359/1996

    Given the magistrate's knowledge of the appellant's recent guilty plea admitting knowledge, and that knowledge was the central element of the charges, the magistrate failed to apply the R v Gough 'real danger' test to the relevant circumstances and did not properly consider the possibility of unconscious bias; consequently there was a real danger of bias and the convictions were unsafe and must be quashed and the matter retried before a different magistrate.