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Co-operation needed for use of Chinese in courts
The promotion of the use of Chinese in courts is a mammoth task which needs the close co-operation of the Judiciary, the Administration, the legal profession and academics, the Chief Justice, Sir Ti Liang Yang, said today (Saturday).
Speaking at the opening ceremony of an exhibition on "Law Awareness" organised by the Lions Club, the Chief Justice noted that the Judiciary was pressing ahead with a plan for the implementation of the use of Chinese in the District Court and above.
Sir Ti Liang explained that under existing legislation, all proceedings in the higher courts had to be conducted in the English language.
The Chief Justice said: "The implementation of the use of Chinese in courts is a very important and mammoth task because ours is a common law jurisdiction and that the common law is founded on English. Even our local judges and lawyers are trained in English.
"Nevertheless, the Judiciary will tackle the problem with a sense of urgency, pragmatism, flexibility, realism and determination and will closely co-operate with relevant government departments, the legal profession and tertiary institutions to plan and promote the use of Chinese in courts.'
In July last year, the Chief Justice appointed a Steering Committee on the Use of Chinese in Courts tasked with putting in place, as far as possible, a bilingual system in court proceedings in the higher courts by June 30, 1997 so as to give an option to those who feel that justice is best served by the use of Chinese in their cases.
"This option is simply not available at present, although 98 per cent of Hong Kong's population speak Chinese as their first language," he said.
Sir Ti Liang added that Article 9 of the Basic Law stipulated that Chinese must be available as an official language in the Judiciary of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. However, to maintain Hong Kong's status as an international finance and trading centre, the Steering Committee had no intention of making the use of Chinese a mandatory requirement in court proceedings.
Noting that the Steering Committee had already drawn up a seven-phase pilot scheme to introduce the use of Chinese in all courts before July 1997, the Chief Justice said in drawing up this timetable, the Steering Committee had taken into consideration the different levels of courts and types of cases which could more practicably lend themselves to the use of Chinese.