{"id":70311,"date":"2025-03-22T09:30:35","date_gmt":"2025-03-22T00:30:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2025\/mar\/22\/jimmy-lai-ruling-hong-kong-erosion-rule-of-law"},"modified":"2025-03-22T09:30:35","modified_gmt":"2025-03-22T00:30:35","slug":"the-obscure-jimmy-lai-ruling-that-exposed-the-erosion-of-hong-kongs-rule-of-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=70311","title":{"rendered":"The obscure Jimmy Lai ruling that exposed the erosion of Hong Kong\u2019s rule of law"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The moves that barred the media mogul\u2019s choice of lawyer are immune from legal challenge, giving the national security committee what one expert called \u2018the powers of a police state\u2019<\/p>\n<p>The dwindling freedom in Hong Kong over the past few years has been described as \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/03\/19\/world\/asia\/hong-kong-security-law-china.html\">death by a thousand cuts<\/a>\u201d. Critics have been <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2024\/dec\/12\/hong-kong-judge-convicts-former-pro-democracy-lawmaker-and-six-others-over-2019-riots\">jailed<\/a>, elections have been transformed into \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2025\/feb\/21\/hong-kong-democratic-party-disbanding-lo-kin-hei\">patriots only<\/a>\u201d affairs, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2022\/jan\/11\/we-fought-the-good-fight-journalists-in-hong-kong-reel-from-assault-on-media\">journalists have been harassed<\/a> and hundreds of thousands of people <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2024\/dec\/24\/hong-kong-police-bounties-pro-democracy-activists-overseas\">have left<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>This week, an obscure legal development has, in the eyes of some legal experts, inflicted another cut on the city\u2019s once revered legal system.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2025\/mar\/22\/jimmy-lai-ruling-hong-kong-erosion-rule-of-law\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The moves that barred the media mogul\u2019s choice of lawyer are immune from legal challenge, giving the national security committee what one expert called \u2018the powers of a police state\u2019The dwindling freedom in Hong Kong over the past few years has been de&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4154,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,50,48,3034],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-70311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-china","category-hong-kong","category-jimmy-lai"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4154"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=70311"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70311\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":70312,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70311\/revisions\/70312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=70311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=70311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=70311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}