6 - Judicial Rhetoric of a Liberal Polity: Hong Kong, 1997–2012

Summary

This chapter presents two visions of Hong Kong as a democratic polity culled from the judgments of the former Chief Justice Andrew Li and Justice Kemal Bokhary. These are contestable conceptions. The chapter explores, in a way, our understanding of constitutional law as a contest between competing visions rather than involving the discovery of some intrinsic meaning. Contests of this kind depend upon, and constitutional argument also becomes, a form of rhetoric. Andrew Li’s judicial pronouncements reflected a perfectionist theory of the Hong Kong Basic Law – a mini-constitution for Hong Kong that, at the same time, is PRC legislation. Li saw the Basic Law as an instrument for the inculcation of civic virtues in the absence of a fully democratised system of government. In contrast, Bokhary’s pronouncements tended to focus on preferred political outcomes founded upon our rights. Li sought to perfect our civic virtues, assuming ours to be a deliberative, democratic society, while Bokhary sought continually to perfect the machinery of our democratic structure by holding the Basic Law to its promise of rights.