Martin Lee

Martin Lee Chu-ming, SC, JP (; born 8 June 1938) is a Hong Kong politician and barrister. He is the founding chairman of the United Democrats of Hong Kong and its successor, the Democratic Party, Hong Kong's flagship pro-democracy party. He was also a member of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong from 1985 to 1997 and from 1998 to 2008. Nicknamed the "Father of Democracy" in Hong Kong, he is recognised as one of the most prominent advocates for democracy and human rights in Hong Kong and China.

A barrister by profession, Lee served as the chairman of the Hong Kong Bar Association from 1980 to 1983. He became involved in discussions over Hong Kong's handover to China, and in 1985 he joined the Hong Kong Basic Law Drafting Committee to assist in the drafting of Hong Kong's Basic Law, the city's mini-constitution post-handover. He was, however, expelled from the body in 1989 in the wake of the 1989 Tiananmen square crackdown, due to his condemnation of the Beijing government's role in the incident and his vocal support for the student protestors. In 1985 he was elected to the Legislative Council, where he advocated strongly for the protection of human rights and democratic reform.

In 1990, he became the founding chairman of the first pro-democracy party in Hong Kong, the United Democrats of Hong Kong, and later its successor, the Democratic Party. Under his leadership, the party won two landslide victories in the direct elections of 1991 and 1995, and emerged as one of the largest political parties in Hong Kong. He worked closely with the last Hong Kong Governor Chris Patten in an attempt to push forward constitutional reform in relation to democratic elections, attracting strong criticism from the Beijing government. In June 1997, he was forced to step down from his office when the colonial legislature was dissolved, alongside a number of other legislators; they later won back their seats in the Legislative Council in 1998.

He resigned as the chairman of the Democratic Party in December 2002, and in 2008 he retired as a member of the Legislative Council. Prior to July 2020 he remained active in advocating and lobbying for the democratic cause both locally and internationally. This ended with the passage of the Hong Kong National Security Law on 1 July 2020.

Early life, education and legal career

A son of Kuomintang Lieutenant General Lee Yin-wo, Lee was born in Hong Kong on 8 June 1938, his mother having journeyed to the British colony on a vacation. His father fought against the Empire of Japan during World War II. In 1949, the family moved to Hong Kong after the Communist takeover of China. Lee's father taught at Wah Yan College, a Jesuit school in Kowloon, for nine years, and then taught part time at the Institute of Chinese Studies. His father maintained a good relationship with the Communist leadership, notably Premier Zhou Enlai, who repeatedly invited him back to the Mainland. Lee Yin-wo's funeral in 1989 was attended by people from both sides of the political spectrum.

Martin Lee studied at Wah Yan College, Kowloon and read English Literature and Philosophy at the University of Hong Kong, sponsored by his mentor, the renowned barrister Dr. Patrick Yu. After graduating in 1960, Lee taught for three years before training as a barrister at Lincoln's Inn in England. He was called to the bar and began practising law in Hong Kong in 1966. During the 1967 Hong Kong riots, Lee defended the pro-Beijing Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions at court, thus laying the foundations of his future relationship with the Chinese Communist Party. In 1979, he was made Queen's Counsel. From 1980 to 1983, he was the chairman of the Hong Kong Bar Association.

Political career

Entry into politics

Lee began his involvement in politics when the British and Chinese governments began their negotiations over Hong Kong's sovereignty in the early 1980s. Lee was in the delegation consisting of Hong Kong's young professionals led by Allen Lee, a member of the Executive and the Legislative Councils of Hong Kong in Beijing in May 1983. The delegation sought to maintain the status quo in Hong Kong and extend British rule by an additional 15 to 30 years. Their requests were turned down by Beijing officials.

Lee was concerned about the maintenance of judicial independence under Chinese rule and called for the preservation of Hong Kong's legal system. He also suggested the creation of an independent Court of Final Appeal in place of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council after 1997. In December 1984, he was invited as one of the attendees at the signing ceremony of the Sino-British Joint Declaration. In 1985, he was among the 23 Hong Kong representatives invited by Beijing to sit on the Hong Kong Basic Law Drafting Committee to draft the mini-constitution of post-1997 Hong Kong, the Basic Law of Hong Kong, where he met another outspoken democrat Szeto Wah. Lee and Szeto became the two lone dissidents in the heavily Beijing-influenced Drafting Committee. Lee's father warned him that the Chinese Communists liked to use people and then get rid of them. Lee said he told his father that "I know the chances of implementing this policy 'One Country, Two Systems' and Hong Kong people ruling Hong Kong are not great. But then I know if I don't even try, the chances are zero."

In September 1985, Martin Lee ran in the Legislative Council elections when the Hong Kong government decided to introduce a handful of indirectly elected seats. His surprise victory over another prominent barrister Henry Litton and lawyer Edmund Chow in a three-way contest in the Legal functional constituency, elected by all the lawyers in Hong Kong, catapulted him to the political stage. He retained his seat in the 1988 re-election unopposed. He became the most recognisable and consistent voice pressing for rapid democratic reform. In the debate on the 1988 Green Paper on the Further Development of Representative Government, Lee was at the forefront of a campaign to introduce direct elections in the 1988 election with Szeto Wah, who won a seat in 1985 through the Teaching constituency. He and other liberals formed the Joint Committee on the Promotion of Democratic Government in 1986, which consisted of about 190 organisations who rallied support for direct elections, including the collection of 220,000 signatures (incl. names and identity card numbers). However, the government concluded in the White Paper that direct elections should not be introduced in 1988 based on public opinion. Lee condemned the government for mishandling the consultative exercise, accusing them of backing down on direct elections in the face of Beijing's pressure.

He also campaigned against the construction of the Daya Bay Nuclear Power Plant in 1986 in which the Chernobyl disaster sparked fears over safety among the Hong Kong public. Lee actively sought for public support through meetings and a signature campaign, which collected over one million signatures. He criticised the government for not disclosing information about the project and attempted to force the government to disclose information under the Legislative Council Power and Privilege Ordinance. He again rallied public support against the amendment of the Public Order Ordinance in 1987 in which the government sought to criminalise the "publishing of false news likely to cause public alarm." Lee worked diligently against the provision, moving the amendment "that any prosecution could only be made upon official proof that a report is false and reckless and that the defendant knew that the facts are false or failed to prove the validity of the facts out of rash" but failed. The case was submitted before the United Nations Human Rights Committee in November 1988 and was eventually repealed in January 1989.

From 1988 to 1991, he was appointed chairman of the Hong Kong Consumer Council. He also served as legal adviser to the Hong Kong Journalists Association, the Scout Association of Hong Kong and numerous professional bodies.

Tiananmen Square protests and democracy movements

In the Hong Kong Basic Law Drafting Committee, Lee also actively lobbied for a democratic post-1997 political system with Szeto Wah. He and the liberals proposed the "Group of 190" proposal which demanded a directly elected government set up as soon as possible. Their view was countered bya number of conservatives in the Drafting and Consultative Committees who rallied under the name of the "Group of 89" backed by big-business interests.

During the Tiananmen protests May and June 1989, Martin Lee was an outspoken supporter of the student movement for more democracy and freedom in China. He, Szeto Wah and other liberals formed the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China in May of which he was the vice-chairman, organising multiple rallies in support of the students in Hong Kong which attracted hundreds of thousands of attendees. After the military crackdown, Lee led the Hong Kong demonstration against the Beijing authorities. He told BBC
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