Rear Window | Presumed guilty

Severo Portela

First things first; we should begin with an unequivocal disclaimer of not having any suspicion,  no shadow of a doubt at all, of the full independence and autonomy the Court of First Appeal exerted all through the trial proceedings and handing down of a 120-day fine to legislator Sulu Sou and activist Scott Chiang; both were found to be guilty of aggravated disobedience.

As well as a minor disclaimer about our own anticipation of an excessive sentence – anything short of an acquittal would have qualified – we are here to disagree, so as to condemn as uneven the balance of the rights of peaceful assembly with the role and actions the security apparatus deemed appropriate in the way such a small protest was framed and contained. Perhaps if it had not been for the prosecution’s excessive zeal… the demonstration would have been forgotten but for the symbolism of the paper plane trespassing upon government land, the sort of leitmotiv that led people to a public protest against the executive’s heavy handout to an outside university.

For the time being that is all we have about the suspended legislator Sou and fellow pro-democracy activist Chiang after two-days in court. So now we have to focus on what was happening out there in civil society not generally known for standing tall and openly voicing opinions on anything that may look political.

This time, other than being quiet as usual, before the trial there was a chorus of well-informed citizens surmising that TJB would not resort to a prison sentence, leaving the case with an obvious fine. I believe this can be reported in any language as a case of presumed guilt, or the nadir of the founding principle of presumed innocence.

Moreover, and worse, after the judgement was known the same chorus found virtue in the 120-day fine on the grounds that it was a strong signal of independence of the courts since the Prosecution was asking for a prison sentence. Is leniency and slyness, not the law, the measure of all things?!

Despite the ultimate result of the handing down of a fine to suspended legislator Sulu Sou – meaning he can resume his mandate at the Legislative Assembly – if one is to believe the Public Prosecutor is not about to appeal the sentence and pave the way to a comeback (there are three more cases allegedly pending in the pipeline) things are getting tough. Tough means nothing, but we have the benefit of researcher and commentator, Jorge Morbey’s sage summary of the environment: a totalitarian temptation.

Eventually the ultimate aim of this apparent authoritarian drive is to neutralize, to scare away pro-democracy activism (the decision to prosecute the president of the New Macau Democrats Kam Sut Leng who was in court to testify for Sulu Sou seems spooky) but that coin has two faces.

Disproportionate sentencing on such minor incidents of civil disobedience spur, if not energize, legal and political issues concerning the rule of law and equality before the law. And here we had nothing more than a placid resistance of a mild sort to alleged arbitrary policing.

Finally, and we do not repeat ourselves to emphasize the regulatory erosion of MSAR model of civil liberties, but to add that blaming winds from the north is as disproportionate as the non-
acquittal verdict to lawmaker Sulu Sou. If we may copy the metaphor, it was a stifling wind blowing from the inside in accordance with the law that made the way to a reshaping of rule of law into rule by law. Do you really want to go down that path to argue according to law?!