Press Release

 

 

Practice Direction slowed down on request

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The following is issued on behalf of the Judiciary :

In response to press enquiries on an earlier statement by the Bar Association that there is a lack of directions as to how appeal could be heard in Chinese, a spokesman for the Judiciary said today (March 23) that in the later part of 1997 when the appropriate rules of court were already put in place to enable the use of Chinese in the High Court, a draft Practice Direction was already in hand.

"It was not issued because representatives of the Law Society had expressed the worries of the legal profession on the use of Chinese in the higher courts and requested to have a discussion of the matter.

"Having understood their worries, the Judiciary assured them a practice direction would not be issued until we had an opportunity to see and assess how the bilingual system had been working for some time, and until after the legal profession had been consulted," the spokesman explained.

The spokesman noted that in September 1999, having observed how the bilingual system had been working for about two years, the Judiciary had formed a task group of judges to look into the matter and they had come up with a more comprehensive draft Practice Direction.

"This is still being studied in detail.

"The Judiciary intends, as we had promised, to consult the legal profession before seeking the approval of the Chief Justice," he said.

The spokesman pointed out the current practice in the High Court adopted since 1997 were as follows:

a) as permitted by the law and the rules of court, parties should be allowed to file their court documents in either languages;

b) If a case was conducted in one official language in the lower court, the appeal should be heard in the same language unless there was application from the parties and there was a court order to the contrary;

c) Where a case was heard in Chinese in the court below, the appeal should be fixed to be heard before bilingual judges and the directions of the Registrar of Appeals should be sought as to whether there was any need to translate any document in the appeal bundle for use at the hearing.

The spokesman also noted that one would expect in the normal course of event that if a case was heard in one official language and the judgment was written in that language, the appeal would also be conducted in the same language.

There were two judgments handed down last year in which the Court of Appeal indicated clearly that if the proceedings in the lower court were conducted in Chinese, the appeals would be conducted in Chinese unless there was an order to the contrary.

On the question of the line up of the court in each case tentatively, the spokesman said this was inevitable as there might be last minute changes due to the unavailability of some of the judges.

"However, Bilingual judges will always be assigned to hear such a case," the spokesman stressed.

He added that any prudent lawyer would have made inquiry from the Registry as to whether translation is needed and if necessary, apply for directions from the court.

End/Thursday, March 23, 2000

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