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1 results

  • 4 - The Common Law after 1997:

  • Marco Wan, The University of Hong Kong
  • Book:
    Film and Constitutional Controversy
    Published online:
    05 February 2021
    Print publication:
    04 February 2021, pp 83-98

  • Summary

    In Chapter 4, I interpret Joe Ma’s Lawyer, Lawyer (1997; 算死草), a farcical comedy of seemingly little jurisprudential value, as a response to debates about the future of the common law in Hong Kong after 1997. In the years leading up to the handover, there were heated discussions of whether the common law should continue to be cited in the territory after China resumed sovereignty, and if so, what kind of authority English precedent should have. While some staunch common law lawyers argued for preserving English law’s privileged status, more reform-minded jurists argued for cutting the territory’s “constitutional umbilicus” from England by relying on local cases. I will contend that the lawyer in Ma’s film wins his case by relying on an English precedent case that is hinted at, but not explicitly mentioned, and further suggest that his highly unorthodox way of citing precedent provides an indication of how Hong Kong can conceive of the place of the English common law after 1997.