New Hong Kong Bar Association chair vows to cultivate more talent for country

The new leader of Hong Kong’s professional body representing barristers has vowed to maintain ties with mainland China and cultivate more legal talent for the country, while expressing hopes for more overseas judges to join the city’s top court following a wave of departures in recent years.

Senior counsel Jose-Antonio Maurellet, a corporate law specialist with the Des Voeux Chambers who was elected uncontested as chairman of the Hong Kong Bar Association at its annual general meeting on Thursday night, also pledged to uphold the core values of the rule of law and judicial independence.

The new leader said he would maintain ties with the mainland by continuing the association’s annual visit to Beijing and organising more courses on the mainland.

“We will continue to conduct the annual trips to Beijing … It has been a tradition of the association since the 1990s,” he said.

“We, of course, want to communicate with any and all stakeholders to explain to them the situation in Hong Kong because we think communication is very important.”

He also said that cultivating legal talent for the country had been another focus of the association for many years, citing programmes its run on common law and international arbitration courses in Beijing, Shanghai, Sichuan and Zhejiang.