The Hong Kong Bar Association has filed a judicial challenge against a disciplinary panel’s decision to clear barrister and former opposition lawmaker Margaret Ng Ngoi-yee of professional misconduct over her participation in an anti-government protest in 2019.
The association’s council on Friday applied for a judicial review of the disciplinary tribunal’s decision that Ng’s conviction for taking part in an illegal gathering was not so serious as “to bring the profession of barrister into disrepute or otherwise diminish public confidence in the profession of barrister”.
Ng, a former Civic Party member and pro-democracy advocate, began practising law in 1988 before being elected to the legal functional constituency of the Legislative Council between 1995 and 1997 and from 1998 to 2012.
She was among nine opposition figures convicted of organising and taking part in an unauthorised assembly that began as a lawful gathering at Victoria Park on August 18, 2019.
Ng later won an appeal against her conviction for organising the demonstration, but her conviction for participation was upheld, for which she was handed a suspended nine-month jail sentence.
The association initiated a disciplinary inquiry into Ng and Martin Lee Chu-ming SC, founding chairman of the defunct Democratic Party, following their convictions in the case in April 2021.