Rimsky Yuen

Rimsky Yuen Kwok-keung (; born 17 June 1964) is a barrister who served as the third Secretary for Justice of Hong Kong from 2012 to 2018.

He was the chairman of the Hong Kong Bar Association from 2007 to 2010, as well as a member of the Guangdong Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, prior to his appointment as Secretary for Justice. His time in office coincided with various political controversies in which he played a central role. They include: the 2014–15 electoral reform which triggered the Occupy Central movement, the Legislative Council oath-taking saga which resulted in the disqualifications of six legislators, the 2017 imprisonment of Hong Kong democracy activists, and the Guangzhou–Shenzhen–Hong Kong Express Rail Link project which is the subject of an ongoing judicial review challenge. He currently practices from Temple Chambers in Hong Kong.

He was awarded the Grand Bauhinia Medal (GBM) by the Hong Kong SAR Government in 2017.

Education and early career

Yuen was born into a grassroots family in 1964. He lived in Lower Wong Tai Sin Estate during his early life. He was educated at Queen Elizabeth School and the University of Hong Kong. He was called to Bar in 1987 after serving pupillage under Mohan Tarachand Bharwaney and Lawrence Lok QC.

In 1995 he joined Temple Chambers, one of the largest barristers' chambers in Hong Kong, on the invitation of former Attorney General Michael Thomas QC and Ronny Tong QC. He specialised in civil litigation, especially commercial disputes including advisory and court works relating to contract disputes, shareholders and partners disputes, corporate and personal insolvency, trusts, banking and financial products disputes, international trade and arbitration. In 1997, he earned an LLM at the City University of Hong Kong, studying Chinese laws under Wang Guiguo and Priscilla Leung.

In 2003 he was appointed Senior Counsel after 15 years of practice. As a silk, his practice expanded to include regulatory matters and judicial reviews. He also served as an arbitrator in international arbitrations and a mediator in commercial disputes.

In 2006 Yuen was appointed a Recorder of the Court of First Instance of the High Court, in which capacity he handled various civil litigations. He also became increasingly involved in public service: he served as a member of the Judicial Officers Recommendation Commission, Non-Official Member of the Independent Commission Against Corruption Advisory Committee on Corruption, the Chairman of the Transport Advisory Committee, and a Non-executive Director of Mandatory Provident Fund Schemes Authority and Council Member of the Hong Kong Institute of Education.

Bar Association chairman

In 2007, Rimsky Yuen was elected chairman of the Hong Kong Bar Association. When he was re-elected in 2008, it was revealed that he was a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference Guangdong Committee. Democratic Party chairman Albert Ho and Civic Party member Audrey Eu, called for Yuen to step down. Ronny Tong, who had declined a similar offer of appointment to the Guangdong CPPCC during his tenure as Bar Association chairman, also expressed his disappointment in Yuen and expressed his concerns over the potential for conflicts of interest.

In contrast, legislator Kwong Chi-kin of the Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions supported Yuen's appointment, stating that it would promote cooperation with mainland authorities; an editorial of ''Wen Wei Po'' also argued that no conflict of interest arose by Yuen's appointment. On 17 January 2008, he was re-elected unopposed.

Secretary for Justice

In 2012, Yuen was appointed by the Chief Executive-elect Leung Chun-ying as the Secretary for Justice.

On 25 September 2015, Yuen was elected as an Honorary Bencher of the Middle Temple.

2014 electoral reform and Occupy protests

In December 2013, Yuen was appointed by Leung Chun-ying as one of the three-member Task Force on Constitutional Development, alongside Chief Secretary for Administration Carrie Lam and Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Raymond Tam, in relation to the consultation on the Methods for Selecting the Chief Executive in 2017 and for Forming the Legislative Council in 2016. Yuen provided the legal opinion on the proposed constitutional reform. He opposed the "civil nomination" proposal advanced by pro-democrats, arguing that it might bypass the nominating committee and "turn it into a plastic stamp"

On 21 October 2014 during the Occupy Central movement triggered by the NPCSC's August 31 Decision, the government and the HKFS held the first round of talks in a televised open debate in which Yuen took part as one of the five government representatives. During the talks, government representatives suggested the possibility of writing a new report on the students' concerns to supplement the government's last report on political reform to Beijing, but stressed that civil nomination, as proposed by the students, fell outside the framework of the Basic Law and the NPCSC decision. The government described the talks as "candid and meaningful" in a press release, while the students expressed their disappointment at the lack of concrete results.

After the final legislative bill came out in January 2015, Yuen continued to lobby for support for the proposal. On 25 April 2015 Yuen participated in a territory-wide bus parade to appeal for public support for the city's constitutional reform package on an open-top double-decker bus. The bill was eventually defeated in the Legislative Council on 18 June.

Legislative Council oath-taking controversy

In October 2016, after the Legislative Council elections resulted in the election of certain pro-Hong Kong independence legislators to the Legislative Council, Yuen and Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying took an unprecedented move to launch a legal challenge against the Legislative Council President Andrew Leung in order to seek the disqualification of two pro-independence Youngspiration legislators-elect Baggio Leung and Yau Wai-ching over the duo's controversial behaviour during the oath-taking ceremony at the inaugural meeting. Despite Yuen repeated statement of not seeking for the NPCSC interpretation of the Basic Law, in November NPCSC interpreted the Basic Law Article 104 and set a framework on how to take the oath and the consequences of not fulfilling it. Yuen refused to resign and defended the NPSCSC interpretation, arguing that both judicial independence and interpretation of Basic Law could co-exist, adding the ruling by Beijing was not targeting the two legislators but instead setting out the general example as an aid to understanding Article 104. On 8 November, hundreds of lawyers joined a silent march against Beijing's interpretation of the Basic Law, claiming it harms judicial independence. As a result, the two legislators were ousted from the Legislative Council by the court on 15 November.

In December 2016 Leung Chun-ying and Rimsky Yuen pursuing after other pro-democrat legislators by lodging another judicial review against four more pro-democracy legislators over their oaths, Lau Siu-lai, Nathan Law, Leung Kwok-hung and Yiu Chung-yim, who were already under legal challenge filed by pro-Beijing supporters. In July 2017, the court ruled the four pro-democracy legislators were to lose their seats.

Prosecution against democracy activists

Yuen received criticism from activists for his prosecution against protesters and activists, including the Department of Justice’s sentence review applications of 16 activists involved in two 2014 protests. In August 2017, Demosisto party chairman Nathan Law, secretary-general Joshua Wong and former Hong Kong Federation of Students secretary-general Alex Chow

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