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Secretary for Justice on threat to magistrate
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     Following is the transcript of remarks made by the Secretary for Justice, Mr Rimsky Yuen, SC, at a media session this morning (July 31):

Reporter: How do you feel the deputy magistrate said he was threatened by someone, and will the department take any action regarding it?

Secretary for Justice: We are very concerned with the incident as was reported a few days ago. (Deputy) Magistrate Mr Chan indicated that he received certain threats after he convicted the relevant defendants. We were following up the matter with the Police and as I have been stressing on other occasions and as in the press release we issued yesterday, Hong Kong people have the right to express the view in respect of verdicts or judgments by judges in Hong Kong. But they should do it within the confines as permitted by the law and no conduct or comment should step beyond the line or should constitute either a contempt of court or other criminal conduct. Should there be any conduct or comment which may have committed the offence of contempt of court or other criminal offences, then we would follow up the matter with the Police. Hong Kong is a society which respects the rule of law very much and respecting the rule of law includes respecting the decisions of the judiciary. Therefore, we need to be very careful and not to allow this trend to continue. Thank you.

(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)

Ends/Friday, July 31, 2015
Issued at HKT 10:48

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