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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Amy Hawkins in Beijing

The obscure Jimmy Lai ruling that exposed the erosion of Hong Kong’s rule of law

Media mogul Jimmy Lai, founder of Apple Daily, arrives the Court of Final Appeal by prison van in Hong Kong, China February 9, 2021.
Jimmy Lai steps out of a prison van in Hong Kong in 2021. An obscure legal development in his case has exposed the erosion of the city’s once revered legal system. Photograph: Tyrone Siu/Reuters

The dwindling freedom in Hong Kong over the past few years has been described as “death by a thousand cuts”. Critics have been jailed, elections have been transformed into “patriots only” affairs, journalists have been harassed and hundreds of thousands of people have left.

This week, an obscure legal development has, in the eyes of some legal experts, inflicted another cut on the city’s once revered legal system.

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