Hong Kong’s highest court has rejected a final appeal by the city’s communications regulator, ending a five-year legal battle over a satirical television program that mocked police during the coronavirus pandemic — just months before the national security law was enacted in the Special Administrative Region.
The Communications Authority had issued warnings to the public broadcaster Radio Television Hong Kong in February 2020 over an episode of the program “Headliner” (頭條新聞), which it claimed had derided the Hong Kong police force. Segments of the program made jokes about police officers hoarding masks, and in another skit an actor played a police officer emerging from a garbage bin.
Some critics at the time, including former Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying (梁振英), claimed that the program had libeled the department, and called on police to sue the network.
Shortly after the warning came from the Communications Authority, the staff union at RTHK joined hands with the independent Hong Kong Journalists Association (HKJA) to challenge the decision through judicial review — a process by which the High Court’s Court of First Instance reviews actions taken by administrative bodies to ensure they act within the bounds of the law.
The Court of First Instance initially ruled in 2021 that some complaints were valid while others were not, prompting both sides to appeal. The Court of Appeal later sided with the journalists’ union and association, ordering all warnings to be rescinded.
The Court of Final Appeal’s Appeals Committee ruled on August 7 that the authority had shown no reasonable grounds for appeal, upholding lower court decisions that overturned the warnings. According to a report from InMedia, the court emphasized that regulators must distinguish between content targeting individuals’ or groups’ “status” versus their “behavior,” with the satirical program found to be criticizing police conduct rather than their professional standing. HKJA has called on the Communications Authority to publicly rescind its original ruling and acknowledge publicly that it was wrong.
