Hong Kong Eastern (Healthy Village) Centre on 26th November 1999
*********************************************************
The following speech is issued on behalf of the Judiciary :
This year the Hong Kong Family Welfare Society celebrates its 50th anniversary. It is a proud record, one that deserves to be celebrated. It marks half a century of service to the community of Hong Kong and it seems to me particularly fitting that, in such an auspicious anniversary year, the Society should be opening this centre to further expand and improve the scope of its services.
Over the span of the past 50 years, Hong Kong has undergone momentous changes. In 1949, it was recovering from the ravages of war. It was a place of refugees, a place where, for the great majority of the population, daily life was a hard struggle. In the compass of one life time, however, it is amazing how Hong Kong has prospered. Its people have grown richer. The continuing waves of refugees have been absorbed and have made their own contribution to the increasing prosperity of the city. Hospitals and schools have been built. Skyscrapers have soared. Today, we in Hong Kong are part of a cosmopolitan community that is envied around the world.
When I travel, people constantly tell me how much they admire the work ethic of the Hong Kong people. When more factories were located here, they used to tell me with awe of how many garments a factory worker could produce in a day - double the number in many other places. Today still they talk of the ambition and drive of the Hong Kong people; how tough they are, how they adapt to change.
Fifty years ago, when there was still damage from Japanese bombers and when water was collected from communal taps, then, it was easy to see how hard things were. But today, driving along the edge of our glittering harbour, seeing the shops and the fifty-storey buildings, outsiders may well say : surely all this vitality and affluence must point to a universally happy, thriving community?
But the outsider, of course, does not see the many stresses placed on family life by the long hours of work, the outsider does not appreciate that often, with both parents working, their children are without their care and guidance for up to 12 hours a day. The outsider does not appreciate that for those children the fierce competition in our schools can be emotionally and physically exhausting for even the most talented pupils.
They have a saying in the United States that there is no such thing as a free lunch. In other words, no matter how good things may look, there is always a price to pay; nothing comes free. And in the making of this great city, Hong Kong people too have had to pay a price. Twenty years ago there were less than a thousand divorce cases processed through our courts each year. Essentially, the Family Court was a 'Saturday morning' court. Today, we are approaching fifteen thousand divorce-related cases a year and we need six full-time family judges. These figures speak for themselves. They tell us of the price that is often paid.
I do not know when the mission statement of the Society was first drafted but it seems to me to have been always relevant. That mission statement reads :
With a family perspective, we are committed to delivering quality and professional social services to enhance the well-being of families and individuals in Hong Kong and to foster a caring community.
But the struggle to foster a caring, emotionally well-balanced community has not fallen away with Hong Kong's increased wealth, far from it. Over the past 50 years the struggle has continued. I have no doubt that the challenges facing the Society today are just as difficult as they were in the past, equally I have no doubt that those challenges are constantly growing more complex.
Today, therefore, with the official opening of the Hong Kong Eastern (Healthy Village) Centre, the Society is not only marking fifty years of proud service, it is also recognising that the struggle continues, that the family unit - which is the very centre of our culture and our heritage, both Asian and Western - is increasingly under pressure.
I have worked - and continue to work - as a family judge. So I too have seen at first hand the profound stress that divorce can place not only on divorcing couples but on their families too. Our system of family law litigation is too narrow, too much a contest of who wins and who loses, to provide a service that truly meets the needs of divorcing couples. That is why alternate forms of dispute resolution must play an increasing role in our system of justice and in this regard, as no doubt you all know, we are about to embark on a 3-year pilot scheme in order to promote mediation as a less hurtful, more constructive way of resolving divorce disputes.
I believe it stands to the credit of Government that, in these difficult economic times, it has produced sufficient funds to underpin the pilot scheme. But it has not been an easy road to reach even this beginning of a new mindset, a new approach in family law matters.
It must be 5 years ago now that I first came into contact with the Hong Kong Family Welfare Society. At that time I confess I knew nothing about mediation. But the Society was already actively lobbying for mediation to play an integral role in family law matters. I will always remember the quiet and polite but nevertheless persistent advice of Tom Mulvey, your director, in this regard. It was advice well worth the giving and well worth the listening to.
But, of course, in order to provide mediation there must first be mediators. And in this regard the Society will be playing a central role in the pilot scheme.
I understand that the Society introduced its divorce mediation service in 1997 with the aim of helping couples facing divorce or separation to handle their disputes rationally and, hopefully, amicably so that they can reach a settlement which is acceptable to both parties and will enable them in the years ahead to continue to co-operate in the care of their children.
I am told that 6 members of the Society's staff have received training in mediation although at this time, largely because of financial constraints, only one mediator's post has been established. But the manpower resources are there and I am sure that, as demand increases, so those resources will be made available for the benefit of the community.
Mediation, of course, while it has been well-known in many jurisdictions such as the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, is new to Hong Kong. As I have said, I myself was ignorant of it until a few years ago and I was a family judge! Making the benefits of mediation known to the general public is, therefore, of great importance and in this regard the Society has played - and continues to play - a leading role in promoting mediation and educating both professionals and the broader public on its benefits.
I have spoken of mediation because that is a subject particularly dear to my heart. But speaking only of mediation when I speak of the Hong Kong Family Welfare Society is rather like speaking only of the power steering when I talk of a top of a range car. There is far more to any such vehicle than just the power steering. A top range car after all a sophisticated, integrated piece of performance machinery. And so it is with the work of the Society.
That work - which falls into some 15 separate categories - covers such areas as counselling for troubled couples, emergency foster care, home help services and family education. It also includes offering guidance to school students to help them overcome problems that may otherwise handicap their academic, social or emotional development. The centre which is being opened today is to be admired. But it must be remembered that it is just one of 25 centres throughout Hong Kong, 10 of those centres being multi-disciplinary in that they offer a broad variety of services to families and individuals in need.
I spoke earlier of 50 years, 50 years in which Hong Kong has grown and the Hong Kong Family Welfare Society has grown with it. People talk of the miracle of Hong Kong. But upon what is that miracle founded? Oil, as with some countries in the Middle East? Gold or iron ore? None of these things. The miracle, if that is what it is, has been founded on one thing only - the people who together make up Hong Kong. And what is it that holds those people together? It is family, first and foremost, and then a sense of community. That is why, of course, organisations such as the Hong Kong Family Welfare Society carry out such vital work, not just for the individuals who seek their help but in the larger, perhaps unseen work of ensuring that our community remains not only cohesive but also capable of showing compassion.
That is why it gives me such particular pleasure today to officiate at this opening ceremony. Because, in truth, we are not here to honour the bricks and the concrete, we are here to honour those officials and employees of the Society who carry out such important but often unheralded work, work which over 50 years has helped to make Hong Kong a decent place to live for all its citizens.
End/Friday, November 26, 1999
NNNN