Courts | TUI ruling is ‘unworthy of the highest court,’ legal expert says

The Court of Final Appeal (TUI) ruling on a series of blocked public assemblies planned for the past month is “not worthy of a high court” and raises pertinent “questions about the role of the courts in the Macau SAR’s political system,” says legal expert Paulo Cardinal, who was interviewed on the case by TDM Radio.

For the legal expert, the justification given by the TUI to back the prohibition of any of the assemblies is “poor in terms of justification” and “marks a sad and worrying day for the values and structural principles that should guide the judiciary powers in Macau.”

The collective of judges from the TUI had ruled in favor of the decision taken by the local police authorities that deemed such assemblies illegal due to the motifs expressed by them. The assemblies had sought to draw attention to the disproportionate use of force by the Hong Kong police during the months-long protests in the city.

On the case, the TUI ruled last Monday with two votes in favor of the blocking by the president Sam Hou Fai and Judge Song Man Lei and one vote against by Judge Viriato de Lima. On the same day a vote declaration statement was released in which de Lima stated that, in his opinion, the decision taken by the collective was lacking in legal fundamentals.

Concurrently, the organizers of the assemblies have also expressed their opinions on the topic through a statement by the political activist Jason Chao, who said he represents them.

“The organizing team of the Macau Rally against Police Brutality in Hong Kong is against the decision by the Court of Final Appeal (TUI) of Macau to uphold the police’s unlawful ban on the assembly,” the statement from Jason Chao said.

“Putting the ongoing political dispute aside, we believe that speaking against torture and police brutality is a matter of conscience rather than political orientation,” the organizers noted in the statement, referring that the topic has recently been raised by the United Nations Human Rights High Commissioner and Amnesty International as well as several other international organizations.

According to Chao, “the most dangerous part of the ruling is that the TUI has made official proclamations a prerequisite for the people’s exercise of freedom of assembly,” echoing the initial police authorities’ argument that “no public authority in Hong Kong has found that the actions of the police amount to [torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment] as charged by the applicants.”

Although made at an early stage, the statements of Chao in the name of the organizers, backed the statements from the legal expert and former Legislative Assembly legal advisor, Cardinal, as well as those made by the higher court judge, Lima, which are included in the statement.

According to Chao, the decision is a very concerning one, since it establishes a precedent.

“From then on, Macau citizens could be arbitrarily prohibited from organizing a demonstration or an assembly about an opinion not officially recognized by the government,” Chao says, adding that the TUI ignored the arguments presented by the organizers through a series of twelve legal arguments that were noted in the submission, basing the response on only three of such arguments.

“The ruling deviates from the jurisprudence on freedom of expression, freedom of assembly and prohibition of torture of highly respected international and regional courts,” Chao noted.

Such actions put “Macau’s judiciary system further away from those of the civilized world,” argued the political activist and constitute a “blatant violation of fundamental rights.”

To the Times, Chao also clarified that the ruling from the TUI is related to the last of the three requests made for public assemblies, the one that should take place today but that comes as part of a sequence of two other requests made in mid-September with the same justification.

Chao also clarified that these public assemblies have “nothing to do with the one planned for Senado Square […] last August 19.”

Nevertheless, at the time, and regarding such assembly, Cardinal also expressed that, “I said that in any competent and independent court, the police decision would be overturned.”