University students savour first taste of bilingual law drafting in Law Drafting Competition 2023 (with photos)
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The Law Drafting Competition 2023 organised by the Department of Justice (DoJ) was a success and ended on a high note today (September 28) with a prize presentation ceremony.
Addressing the ceremony, the Secretary for Justice, Mr Paul Lam, SC, said that the competition was inaugurated by the DoJ to encourage people to know more about law drafting, and it represented an innovative attempt by the DoJ to take forward the education and promotion of the rule of law in a proactive and diversified way. Mr Lam noted that the event was content-rich and challenging, and he congratulated the select few students who won in the competition.
Also present to share the joy of the winning students were the Deputy Secretary for Justice, Mr Cheung Kwok-kwan, and former Law Draftsman Mr Tony Yen. Both were members of the competition’s adjudicating panel, the other being Legislative Council Member and Committee for the Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region under the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress member Dr Priscilla Leung.
Launched with the slogan “Write Laws for Good”, the competition encouraged university students to devise legislative proposals and draft proposed bills on their own, so that they could understand the importance of good legislation to the rule of law, and appreciate the unique advantages of Hong Kong being the only common law jurisdiction in China and the only place in the world that has a legal system operating in both English and Chinese languages.
The competition received an encouraging response, with a total of 19 teams (35 students) completing all the challenges. Every participating team was required to choose between the topics of “Private Information on the Internet” and “Homicide Offences”. The teams had to formulate legislative proposals based on their choice and draft proposed bills in both English and Chinese. In February this year, the Law Drafting Division organised two sessions of a Law Drafting Workshop for the teams, covering the origins of statute law in Hong Kong, structure of bills, plain language drafting, and features of bilingual drafting.
The winner and first and second runners-up of the competition were, respectively, Mr Chen Zhongyu (Postgraduate Certificate in Laws, City University of Hong Kong), Ms Tsoi Cheuk-ling (Bachelor of Laws (Year 3), City University of Hong Kong) and the team formed by Ms Amanda Huang Wan-ning (Bachelor of Laws (Year 3), the University of Hong Kong) and Mr Oscar Wong Tsz-shing (Bachelor of Social Sciences (Government and Laws) and Bachelor of Laws (Year 4), the University of Hong Kong).
For details of the competition and submissions of the winning teams, please visit the competition’s dedicated webpage: www.doj.gov.hk/en/ldd/law_drafting_competition.html.
