When the Apple Daily founder, Jimmy Lai Chee-ying, and ex-Next Digital executive Wong Wai-keung had their fraud convictions quashed by the Court of Appeal (Feb 26), they and their lawyers must have been elated. It is no light matter for convictions to be quashed, but Chief Judge Jeremy Poon Shiu-chor and justices Derek Pang Wai-cheong and Anthea Pang Po-kam knew exactly where their duty lay. Once they concluded that the trial judge’s convictions were unsafe, the appeals had to be allowed (CACC 223/2022).
Whereas Lai, in December 2022, was sentenced to five years and nine months’ imprisonment, fined HK$2 million ($256,000) and disqualified under the Companies Ordinance (Cap.32) for breaching the lease terms of Apple Daily’s headquarters by concealing the operation of a private company, Dico Consultants, in the building, Wong received 21 months’ imprisonment for his lesser role. Although the district court judge, Stanley Chan Kwong-chi, had concluded Lai was aware of the need to obtain a license from Hong Kong Industrial Estates for Dico to operate from the headquarters and had “acted under the protective umbrella of a media organization”, this finding was assailed on appeal as untenable. The judges agreed that the prosecution had failed to prove that Lai made a “false representation” or was liable for concealment. Although it was established that Apple Daily breached its contract by allowing Dico Consultants to operate from its premises, it was not shown why either defendant should be held criminally liable.
Both Lai and Wong assembled high-powered teams of barristers to represent them in their appeals, each supported by Robertsons, a renowned local solicitors’ firm. Whereas Lai’s three-person team was led by Senior Counsel Derek Chan Ching-lung, Wong’s three-person team was led by Senior Counsel Maggie Wong Pui-kei. Both teams argued their clients’ cases to the best of their ability, and they undoubtedly felt the Court of Appeal delivered justice. Given their experience of the city’s criminal justice system, they would have had complete faith in the integrity of the appellate process and the independence of the judges.
Although Lai has faced various proceedings over the years, this was by no means his first success in the Court of Appeal. In August 2023, after he was convicted in 2021 of organizing an unauthorized assembly at Victoria Park in 2019, the appeal judges also quashed his conviction. They concluded the conviction was unsafe as the evidence did not support the charge. Although he had participated in an unlawful procession from Causeway Bay to Central, it could not be established beyond a reasonable doubt that he exercised a leadership role.
However, the pleasure undoubtedly felt by Lai’s local lawyers over the outcomes of his two appeals was not shared by Caoilfhionn Gallagher, the London-based king’s counsel who heads Lai’s “international legal team” (comprising five barristers), and a little digging shows why.
After Lai won his first appeal in 2023, Gallagher, far from commending the judges, whined that it was “too little, too late”. She claimed the result was “no more than a fig leaf of due process for a system which is fundamentally unfair”, which was extraordinary. Although the outcome demonstrated, contrary to foreign slurs, that the Judiciary, the bedrock of the “system” Gallagher maligned, was as committed as ever to just outcomes, her prejudice, not for the first time, overbore her judgment.
It was, therefore, unsurprising that when Lai’s fraud convictions were also quashed, Gallagher again refused to rejoice. On the contrary, she declared the judgment “changes nothing”, given Lai’s detention for national security crimes. Once again, for reasons best known to herself, she withheld any praise for the judges, let alone the legal system. In a knee-jerk reaction to the BBC, she declared, “No one should be fooled into thinking that this fraud appeal belatedly suggests the Hong Kong system operates fairly or justly.” It can only be imagined what her reaction would have been if Lai had lost his appeal.
Anyone hoping to make head or tail of Gallagher’s antics must recognize that she is ideologically motivated, part of a broader political crusade. By leveraging Lai’s name, she is able to hobnob with anti-China elements around the world and seize every opportunity to malign not only the Hong Kong SAR but also China.
Anyone hoping to make head or tail of Gallagher’s antics must recognize that she is ideologically motivated, part of a broader political crusade. By leveraging Lai’s name, she is able to hobnob with anti-China elements around the world and seize every opportunity to malign not only the Hong Kong SAR but also China
In March 2023, for example, Gallagher told the UN Human Rights Committee that Hong Kong was using its criminal laws “to target and imprison journalists, writers, lawyers and peaceful pro-democracy activists”. Although this was delusional and more becoming of a rabble-rouser than a king’s counsel, it was only the start.
In July 2025, she again put the boot in during her appearance before the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee. She said that, because of his “public interest journalism”, Lai was “imprisoned in solitary confinement in Hong Kong”. Having set the scene, she broadened her attack, targeting the “one country, two systems” policy. She announced that Lai’s case was “emblematic of the crackdown on human rights, media freedom and democracy in Hong Kong”. If nothing else, this must have delighted the assembled Sinophobes. However, in her eagerness to trash the city’s reputation, she failed to mention that Lai was segregated at his own request, that he was facing trial for trying to persuade external elements to harm his home city and its officials (conduct that would also be repugnant if occurring in the US), and that his prosecution showed that nobody was above the law, however rich and powerful.
In February 2025, Gallagher’s mask slipped altogether when she testified before the UK Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights (chaired, paradoxically, by Hong Kong Watch patron Lord (David) Alton, one of the anti-China movement’s pin-up boys). This time, there was little mention of Lai, and she targeted Beijing directly, accusing it of “transnational repression”. Sounding more like a right-wing fanatic than a leading London barrister, she declared it would be “a fundamental misstep if the view were to be taken that China should not be in the enhanced tier”. This was a reference to the UK’s Foreign Influence Registration Scheme, under which threatening entities can be placed on an enhanced security tier, which involves mandatory registration and draconian controls on their activities in Britain. The UK’s Beijing-hostile politicians continue to lobby for China’s inclusion on the enhanced tier (along with Russia and Iran), and they would undoubtedly have welcomed Gallagher’s support.
By any yardstick, therefore, Gallagher has forfeited any credibility she may once have had as an advocate for Lai. Although still capable of stoking anti-China sentiments in international fora, she is now of as much use to Lai’s cause as a dead parrot. His local lawyers, Robertsons, realized long ago that she had lost the plot and distanced themselves from her, valuing their credibility. In January 2023, they told the world they were not “professionally associated” with Gallagher’s team, and everybody can now see why.
If, therefore, anyone wants to know how Hong Kong’s criminal justice system actually works, the last person they should consult is Gallagher (or anyone on her team). Instead, they should turn to the World Justice Project’s Rule of Law Index 2025 (issued last October). The index is the world’s leading source of original, independent rule-of-law data, and its findings conclusively put to bed Gallagher’s myth-making. In the criminal justice category, Hong Kong ranked 21st out of 143 jurisdictions surveyed, ahead of France (26th), Italy (28th), and the US (37th). This achievement not only exposed the propagandists’ fallacies but also demonstrated how well our Judiciary upholds the rule of law.
The author is a senior counsel and law professor, and was previously the director of public prosecutions of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.
