Severo Portela
High summer in Macau comes with unbearable humidity, gales and tropical showers, and a series of typhoons. But daily news and public affairs do not have a so-called ‘silly season’. Locals quietly address this with a sheepish explanation: silly season is all year round. This is not true.
The fact is that in spite of political, legislative, judicial, or low season slowdowns, summer is always eventful in Macau. No matter how high or low the season rolls, all things printed will be handled without one iota of humor or comedy; like Mark Twain copycats who resist all things funny – not because it is an inferior class of writing, but because to dispense humor is somehow to respect the entente cordiale that allows different communities to share in the Macau Special Administrative Region. I do repeat respect, not a crude narrative on friendship.
But we have to bear in mind that going without humor does not mean dispensing with the truth. And the truth is that the Chief Executive’s five Secretaries arrive in summertime, if not at a standstill, then with not much to show… after a rush to make it or break it. Politically, this is the personal reinforcement of the MSAR’s Chief Executive, and more importantly, it emphasizes the idea that the solutions to all problems must be achieved through integration. After all, Macau is not an island!
Let us examine one example. The local Portuguese lawyer, Joao Miguel Barros, seriously suspects that the ongoing talks between Macau and Hong Kong SARs to establish a bilateral extradition pact are rather opportunistic. Speaking to Portuguese daily Hoje Macau, Barros expressed his conviction that the sudden agreement to surrender convicted criminals or fugitive offenders has a name on it, or rather two: Joseph Lau and Steve Lo. Both were convicted in one of the so-called ex-Secretary Ao Man-long’s ‘connected’ lawsuits, as well as Barros’ runaway client Pedro Chiang.
We do not view Barros’ assessment of Lau and Lo’s “La Scala” court case as a stimulus to expedite an agreement. Despite the technical complexity of a bilateral agreement between the two SARs, it is only a matter of time and political will and not “political interference” as Chiang’s lawyer presumes, for both regions to pen an extradition formal understanding.
The increase in cross-border crime, especially the more and less sophisticated of the white-collar brand, makes the case for the urgency of working out a bilateral agreement. Professor Simon Young (Ngai-man) of the HKU Law Faculty goes further when evaluating the multi-jurisdiction framework: not only Macau and Hong Kong, but also mainland China and Taiwan, need to arrive at a single agreement or a series of bilateral ones.
That’s it. Now, we admit to have taken Barros’ comments – the words of a no-nonsense and brave ‘barrister’ – just to illustrate how some legal minds resort to contrivances in order to avoid an issue. The integrity of the MSAR judicial system is not threatened by a bilateral agreement that prevents convicts’ avoidance of serving time, nor is it tarnished by the taboo of retroaction: it is a convention, an international agreement!
P.S. Warning: double entendres operate in this area. As the season heats up, we thought to allow ourselves to share a kind of joke to clarify the above-mentioned difference between respect and friendship. In times of light political correctness, there was a Portuguese soft drink commercial featuring a stuttering barman and a client with a similar stutter. Enter another client, and the barman begins speaking straight. The first client angrily asks the barman, “Are you playing with me?” The barman answers, stammering, “No, I am playing with them.”
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