A journalist for more than 30 years, Cliff Buddle began his career as a court reporter in London and moved to Hong Kong in 1994 to join the SCMP.
The hotly contested court battle over government plans to build 12,000 public flats on Hong Kong’s oldest golf course has played its final round. The government decided not to appeal against a ruling that held its approval of an environmental impact assessment (EIA) report on the project to be unlawful.
This is better than pursuing a further attempt to persuade the courts to uphold a fatally flawed process. Now, a broader review of the plans can be undertaken in light of the Court of Appeal’s judgment in favour of the Hong Kong Golf Club.
There are many lessons to be learned from the affair. The Court of First Instance found in 2024 that the process by which the EIA report was prepared and approved was littered with errors and breaches of the law. Almost all of those findings were endorsed by the Court of Appeal.