Li & Partners represented the Honourable Elizabeth Quat, BBS, JP, the 1st Putative Respondent in the application for leave to apply for judicial review lodged by Mr. Kwok Cheuk-kin in the High Court of Hong Kong for a court order to disqualify Ms. Quat as a member of the Legislative Council. On 22 January 2021, the High Court of Hong Kong handed down judgment ruling that Ms. Quat succeeded in her case, and dismissed the Mr. Kwok’s application for judicial review.
The applicant Mr. Kwok Cheuk-kin applied for leave to apply for judicial review in 2017 for a court order to disqualify Ms. Quat as a member of the Legislative Council. The High Court of Hong Kong adopted the arguments, with respect to the procedures to challenge a Legislative Council member’s qualification, as put forward by the legal team of Li & Partners. In the judgment, the judge held that:- (1) the proper procedure to challenge the qualification of a Legislative Council member should be by way of election petition, instead of judicial review; (2) the application was substantially out of time and the applicant gave no good explanation for the delay; (3) the applicant was not at the material time an elector in the constituency that Ms. Quat stood in, and he does not have sufficient interest in the matter to apply for the judicial review. The judge thereby ruled that Ms. Quat succeeded in her case.
The ruling in this case reiterated the conditions and procedures for electors to challenge the election of a person at a Legislative Council Election, which is of landmark significance and has a guiding effect on the implementation of the mechanism that oversees Hong Kong elections.
