Patrick Yu Shuk Siu (; August 22, 1922 – January 12, 2019) was a celebrated

trial In law, a trial is a coming together of Party (law), parties to a :wikt:dispute, dispute, to present information (in the form of evidence (law), evidence) in a tribunal, a formal setting with the authority to Adjudication, adjudicate claims or d ...

and

appellate In law, an appeal is the process in which cases are reviewed by a higher authority, where parties request a formal change to an official decision. Appeals function both as a process for error correction as well as a process of clarifying and ...

lawyer A lawyer is a person who practices law. The role of a lawyer varies greatly across different legal jurisdictions. A lawyer can be classified as an advocate, attorney, barrister, canon lawyer, civil law notary, counsel, counselor, solic ...

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

Biography

Born into an intellectual

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...

family in Hong Kong, with ancestry from

Taishan __NOTOC__ Taishan may refer to: *Mount Tai or Taishan (), Shandong, China *Taishan District, Tai'an (), named after the Mount Tai, a district in Tai'an, Shandong, China *Taishan, Guangdong (), a county-level city of Jiangmen, Guangdong, China **Gre ...

Guangdong Guangdong (, ), alternatively romanized as Canton or Kwangtung, is a coastal province in South China on the north shore of the South China Sea. The capital of the province is Guangzhou. With a population of 126.01 million (as of 2020) ...

, Yu was educated at home for many years before attending Wah Yan College Hong Kong, a prominent

Jesuit , image = Ihs-logo.svg , image_size = 175px , caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits , abbreviation = SJ , nickname = Jesuits , formation = , founders ...

high school in

. In 1938, at the age of sixteen, he was admitted to the

University of Hong Kong The University of Hong Kong (HKU) (Chinese: 香港大學) is a public research university in Hong Kong. Founded in 1887 as the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese, it is the oldest tertiary institution in Hong Kong. HKU was also the fi ...

, where he studied in the arts program as a Government Scholar. In 1941, shortly after the

Pacific War The Pacific War, sometimes called the Asia–Pacific War, was the theater of World War II that was fought in Asia, the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean, and Oceania. It was geographically the largest theater of the war, including the vast ...

had broken out, Yu served with British Naval Intelligence and was commissioned as an officer in the Intelligence Corps of the Army of the

Republic of China Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northeast ...

. In 1945, Yu was awarded a Victory Scholarship by the Government of Hong Kong to continue his studies in

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. He studied at

Merton College, Oxford Merton College (in full: The House or College of Scholars of Merton in the University of Oxford) is one of the Colleges of Oxford University, constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. Its foundation can be traced back to the ...

, from 1946 to 1948, and later passed his Bar Examination. Jobless and almost penniless, Yu was forced to find himself a profession. Within a 10-month period, he familiarised himself with all the "niceties" of the English

common law In law, common law (also known as judicial precedent, judge-made law, or case law) is the body of law created by judges and similar quasi-judicial tribunals by virtue of being stated in written opinions."The common law is not a brooding omnipresen ...

, studying in the Bar Library at

Lincoln's Inn The Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn is one of the four Inns of Court in London to which barristers of England and Wales belong and where they are called to the Bar. (The other three are Middle Temple, Inner Temple and Gray's Inn.) Lincoln ...

. In 1949, he passed the bar exam of England and Wales and practised briefly as a chancery

barrister A barrister is a type of lawyer in common law jurisdictions. Barristers mostly specialise in courtroom advocacy and litigation. Their tasks include taking cases in superior courts and tribunals, drafting legal pleadings, researching law and ...

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

. In 1950, Yu moved to

Malaya Malaya refers to a number of historical and current political entities related to what is currently Peninsular Malaysia in Southeast Asia: Political entities * British Malaya (1826–1957), a loose collection of the British colony of the Straits ...

for a short period to work in his uncle's firm

Shook Lin & Bok Shook Lin & Bok is a law firm with offices in Singapore and Malaysia. History Shook Lin & Bok began in 1918 as Messrs Yong Shook Lin, a Kuala Lumpur law firm. That year, Yong Shook Lin was admitted as the first Chinese to the Malayan bar aft ...

. He soon went back to

, and in 1951 became the first Chinese person to be appointed Crown Counsel of that British colony. Yu resigned in 1953 and commenced a private practice. He soon built up a sterling reputation as an

advocate An advocate is a professional in the field of law. Different countries' legal systems use the term with somewhat differing meanings. The broad equivalent in many English law–based jurisdictions could be a barrister or a solicitor. However, ...

, and by the mid-1960s he had already become the top criminal lawyer in town. It was also during this time he helped to establish the first law school in Hong Kong, "The Faculty of Law of the University of Hong Kong". For that, he received an Honorary LLD degree from the University of Hong Kong. In the 1970s, Yu was offered a

judge A judge is a person who presides over court proceedings, either alone or as a part of a panel of judges. A judge hears all the witnesses and any other evidence presented by the barristers or solicitors of the case, assesses the credibility an ...

ship on the

Supreme Court of Hong Kong The Supreme Court of Hong Kong was the highest court in Hong Kong prior to the transfer of sovereignty of Hong Kong from the United Kingdom to the People's Republic of China in 1997 and heard cases of first instance and appeals from the Di ...

, an invitation he declined. Two similar offers were made during the decade. Yu declined both on the grounds of the discriminatory employment terms. Yu was also known for his refusal to apply to become

Queen's Counsel In the United Kingdom and in some Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth countries, a King's Counsel (Post-nominal letters, post-nominal initials KC) during the reign of a king, or Queen's Counsel (post-nominal initials QC) during the reign of ...

, a mark of distinction envied by many practitioners in Hong Kong, the United Kingdom and in many other Commonwealth countries. In 1983, after thirty years of private practice, Yu decided to retire. He became an

autobiography An autobiography, sometimes informally called an autobio, is a self-written account of one's own life. It is a form of biography. Definition The word "autobiography" was first used deprecatingly by William Taylor in 1797 in the English peri ...

author and story-teller, and has published two volumes of memoirs and stories since. He became a life member of the Hong Kong bar association in 1994. He is a cousin of Yong Pung How, former Chief Justice of Singapore, and his younger daughter is married to the younger son of

Sir Ti Liang Yang Sir Ti-liang Yang, (; born 30 June 1929) is a retired senior Hong Kong judge. He was the Chief Justice of Hong Kong from 1988–1996, the only ethnic Chinese person to hold this office during British colonial rule. He was a candidate in the ...

, former Chief Justice of Hong Kong. Yu died on 12 January 2019.

References

Autobiography

* ''Tales from No. 9 Ice House Street'', 2002 * ''A Seventh Child and The Law'', 2000

Biography

References

Autobiography

See also