Eighteen years is a long time to give to politics, especially when one is driven not by temptation of the glittering prize of power and glory but a grim sense of obligation. Hong Kong is the city of my birth. Her future under an untried promise of “one country, two systems” when Britain handed her back to Communist China after 150 years of colonial rule was my mission. I was no politician. I was a lawyer with a taste in the liberal arts. I stood for election in Hong Kong’s local parliament called the Legislative Council (“LegCo” for short) because the most politically active people shaping Hong Kong’s constitutional future were members of my profession. We believed that, whatever political views politicians may take, the fundamental values of freedom and democracy can only prevail under the rule of law. And so I served as a member of LegCo for 18 years from 1995 to 2012. I did not act alone. It was always the best of my profession working through me, and after I stepped down, I felt I owe it to them, and to the people who placed their faith in us, to put on record our endeavours for future generations. I wrote in Chinese because the wider public in this city was my primary audience. “Under the Keystone —— 18 years in politics”1 was published in 2018. “Keystone” because of the classical architectural style of the building in which LegCo was housed. My editor thought it symbolized the ability to withstand pressure from both sides and maintain balance and stability. I did not know then that my city was at the brink of drastic change, and a book such as that can never be written again.
This is the English version of that book, now clothed with new significance. I had always intended to produce an English version, because the non-Chinese-speaking community was an integral part of my city, and they are just as entitled to an account of those years and how we, on the mandate of the people, spent them. But the two halves of the city do not duplicate each other. Their cultural background, their habits and frame of mind are not the same —— indeed, this is what makes the city so uniquely interesting. And so the English version is not a literal translation of the Chinese. I have basically re-written the book bearing in mind these differences. Even as I was preparing the English version, a new protest movement shook the city: the mass protest against the government’s attempt to change the law to make it easier for the government to surrender people in Hong Kong suspected of having committed a crime to the mainland, to be dealt with under the Chinese justice system. The law that was sought to be changed was a law LegCo passed in my time in that form for the protection of all who live in Hong Kong. It was my issue. I could not just walk away.
I was arrested on 18 April 2020 for organizing and joining a peaceful protest march without police permission. I stood my trial together with 8 others. We were all convicted.2 I spoke before the sentencing court to give an account of myself and my life’s work in the defence of the rule of law and independence of the judiciary, and why that obliged me to stand with the common people. Later, reviewing my statement, I found that it summed up the whole of my political life. I told the court I came late to the law, and have grown old in the service of the rule of law. I concluded with these words paraphrasing Sir Thomas More’s last words: “I am the law’s good servant, but the people’s first. For the law must serve the people, not the people the law.” I hope this book bears these words testimony.
This book is not just about the past but also about the future. For, when darkness falls, only true understanding of the past can lead us forward.
