Hong Kong lawmaker Ted Hui was found guilty today of common assault, obstructing a public officer, and accessing a computer with a criminal intent over an incident in which he snatched a government official’s phone and absconded to the men’s room at the Legislative Council last year.
Hui had pleaded not guilty to the charges, which stemmed from a Legco hearing last year on a controversial plan to allow mainland police to enforce mainland laws at the West Kowloon high-speed rail station, RTHK reports.
Magistrate Cheng Lim-chi said in his ruling that he didn’t buy Hui’s contention that he had snatched the phone to prevent an illegal act from taking place, and added that, furthermore, he didn’t believe the official had been overstepping her bounds in carrying out her duties for the Security Bureau, which had authored the legislation in question. (Indeed, the privacy commissioner said at the time that the official’s actions weren’t inappropriate, as it was routine for government officers to monitor who showed up to vote on bills they sponsored.)
Hui complained at the time that the Security Bureau official was monitoring the “entry and exit time of lawmakers” into the bills committee meeting on the legislation, which he suggested could breach the privacy ordinance.
He then snatched the woman’s phone away and — in very dignified fashion, we’re sure — scampered into the men’s toilet and scanned the device for some 10 minutes, purportedly to see what kind of information the Security Bureau was collecting on Legco members.
Condemnation of the schoolyard antics — including from Hui’s own Democratic Party — was swift, and Hui later apologized to the official, who was left in tears by the incident. He, however, also sought to justify his actions, later maintaining that he had indeed found a substantial amount of data on Legco members on the phone.
Hui also expressed remorse in court by way of mitigation, but Magistrate Cheng said he wasn’t buying that either, also interrupting Hui at one point to correct his assertion that the case was political.
Hui told the court he would “search his soul” over the incident, and added that he hoped his sentence wouldn’t prevent him from taking part in the current Legco battle over controversial changes to Hong Kong’s extradition law.
A sentence is due on June 10.
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