The Hong Kong Court of Appeal handed down its judgment on Friday on an appeal brought by the Department of Justice, ruling that defendants in riot cases from 2019 were “wrongfully” acquitted. The Court of Appeal held that the trial judge committed serious mistakes in acquitting the defendants, ordered a retrial of four defendants.

The Court of Appeal says the trial judge erred in four way. First, the Court of Appeal contends that trial judge overstepped his role as a judge and made decisions that should have been left to the jury in half-time submissions. When the trial judge ruled that there was no case to answer against the fifth defendant, the Court of Appeal says he failed to give sufficient consideration to the fact that “her clothing and actions can constitute to encouraging people participating in a riot.”

Second, in ordering the acquittal of other defendants, the Court of Appeal asserts that the trial judge did not take into sufficient consideration or correctly analyze the testimonies of each defendant. The Court of Appeal contended that even if the trial judge did not accept that they committed riot, he should still have considered whether the defendants committed riot on the basis of accessory liabilities (assisting, abetting, or encouraging).

Third, the trial judge ruled that there was a possibility that the defendants went there from different directions and coincidentally ran into police dispersal. The Court of Appeal did not accept this reasoning for the lack of testimonial support from the defendants’ testimonies.

Lastly, the Court of Appeal rejected the trial judge’s analysis on the defendants’ clothing and equipment.

This appeal involved two cases with 13 defendants in total. However, only four of them are still living in Hong Kong. The Court of Appeal only ordered a retrial for these four defendants because the Secretary for Justice failed to comply with required procedure and serve documents to the other defendants. The Court of Appeal said the failure to comply with the requirements deprived those defendants of their right to prepare for the proceedings and to a fair trial. The Court of Appeal also suggested that the current laws on the serving procedures of criminal appeals of the District Courts are not clear and create unnecessary difficulties on execution.

One defendant, Jackie Chen, was acquitted by way of “no case to answer” and belonged to a social worker group named Battlefield Social Worker Group. The group was established during the 2019 anti-extradition law amendment bill movement and aimed at monitoring police behavior, liaising between protesters and the force, as well as providing emotional support at demonstrations.