Student chiefs take HKU fight to court

The University of Hong Kong's students’ Union president Billy Fung Jing-en (馮敬恩) and vice president Colman Li Fung-kei (李峰琦) have filed separate applications for judicial reviews against the HKU council’s ( 香港大學校務委員會) rejection of a recommendation that Johannes Chan Man-mun (陳文敏) be appointed a pro vice chancellor.

Fung’s application argued the council should have given Chan, a pro-democracy academic, an opportunity to clarify accusations against him during a meeting so that members could make an informed judgment.

“The council did not take reasonable steps to ascertain the opposing position to those allegations,” he said.

Earlier, Fung had revealed the contents of a council meeting that rejected Chan's recommendation.

During the meeting, Arthur Li Kwok-cheung (李國章) said Chan had no doctoral degree. Another council member, liver surgeon Lo Chung-mau (盧寵茂), said Chan was not even an assistant professor, and had shown him no sympathy when Lo fell during the chaos that occurred at a meeting in late July.

In his writ, Colman Li said the council should have explained the major points of its decision, which is a balance between the confidentiality of the meeting and the public’s right to know.

He wrote that despite confidentiality of the decision-making process, the decision-maker may still explain the major points of the decision and the relevant principles. Outside court, Fung denied suggestions that he was abusing judicial procedures.

(This article is published on Junior Standard on 5 January 2015)

Judicial review
http://goo.gl/9ouN4S

Abuse of judicial reviews slammed
http://goo.gl/3VnKos