In its September 2007 issue, The Far Eastern Economic Review magazine reviews "Hong Kong Media Law."  The review was written by Danny Jittings, former editorial page editor of The South China Morning Post and deputy editorial-page editor of The Wall Street Journal Asia and now assistant professor of law at HKU's School of Prfoessional and Continuing Education.

Hong Kong Media Law: A Guide for Journalists and Media Professionals
by Doreen Weisenhaus
Hong Kong University Press,372 pages, HK$225

Reviewed by Danny Gittings

China’s dubious distinction as the world’s worst jailer of journalists is well known. For instance, Hong Kong reporter Xi Yang was imprisoned from 1994-97 simply for writing about Beijing’s plans to raise interest rates. For those who believe things have improved since then, the fate of Straits Times correspondent Ching Cheong stands as sad evidence to the contrary. Convicted of revealing state secrets during a closed-door trial last year, after writing some innocuous articles for a Taiwanese think tank, the ailing journalist is currently serving a five-year sentence for spying.

They were just a couple of the victims of a legal system that allows, as Doreen Weisenhaus reminds us, everything from divorce statistics to local newspapers to be categorized as state secrets. And, in case that doesn’t provide enough ammunition to jail journalists just trying to do their jobs, she adds the cautionary warning that, in China, any document can be retrospectively classified as secret.

So the first reaction on opening Hong Kong Media Law, which includes a chapter highlighting the risks of reporting from mainland China, is relief at how journalists in the British colony are still spared the nightmare of operating under what passes for “media law” in the rest of China.

But dig a little deeper into this practical guide for journalists working in Hong Kong and a more mixed picture emerges. Yes, the legal framework for the media in the former British colony shines by comparison with the dismal situation elsewhere in China. But doing better than the world’s worst jailer of journalists is hardly saying much. And reporters in Hong Kong must still tread much more carefully than their counterparts in the United States, for example.

Hence the value of this new work by Ms. Weisenhaus, the director of the Media Law Project at the territory’s leading school for reporters, the Journalism and Media Studies Centre of the University of Hong Kong. Two other local academics also contributed chapters.

Anyone familiar with how the First Amendment protects press freedom in the U.S. will be shocked at how much more steeply the cards are stacked against those forced to defend a libel suit in Hong Kong. Truth is no defense, unless you can prove every possible meaning of what you wrote in court. Nor, generally speaking, is it any use to argue that publication was in the public interest, although the courts have begun to show a little flexibility on this front in recent years.

Like many of the other minefields faced by Hong Kong journalists, this is the legacy of the less-than-media-friendly legal system that London bequeathed to its colonies. But while Britain has moved on since then—finally enacting a Freedom of Information Act in 2000—postcolonial Hong Kong has not. Its nonstatutory Code on Access to Information is peppered with exemptions, and acts as little more than another channel for distributing press releases and publicity brochures. As Ms. Weisenhaus points out, the cost is a secretive government which, while not quite on a par with its bosses in Beijing, keeps under wraps information on everything from the territory’s worsening air pollution to the relocation of its own offices.

A government with such ambivalence toward press freedom is also more inclined to use those Draconian legacies of the British era than its colonial predecessor. In particular, July 2004 saw officers from the Independent Commission Against Corruption raid seven local newsrooms, as well as the homes of several local journalists, in the largest operation of its kind ever conducted in Hong Kong. The raids, in response to the media’s efforts to report the controversy over whether a participant in the territory’s witness protection program was being illegally detained, have cast doubt on whether reporters’ notes and other journalistic material still enjoy any meaningful legal protection.

Difficult as the situation now is, it will quickly get much worse if the government reintroduces Article 23, the legislation restricting civil liberties on the grounds of national security that was put on hold after massive public protests four years ago. The legislation already on the statute books is bad enough. Once again, Hong Kong has its British legacy to blame for an Official Secrets Ordinance that makes no exception for revelations of corruption or other matters of public interest. But the aborted 2003 proposals would have extended the ambit of this law much further. As Ms. Weisenhaus notes, reports on anything from air agreements to changes in immigration policy could easily run afoul of these expanded parameters for official secrets. Although Hong Kong’s current chief executive, Donald Tsang, shows little enthusiasm for reviving such an unpopular issue, the shadow of possible Article 23 legislation only adds to the uncertainty over the legal framework in which the Hong Kong media must operate.

Despite this, those who have worked in the Hong Kong media will be only too familiar with the casual attitude toward negotiating these legal minefields that prevails in most local newsrooms. Most reporters know virtually nothing about the law of libel. In-house counsel are unknown in Hong Kong’s highly competitive media environment. All too often, the strategy when confronted with a legally questionable exclusive is to simply publish and hope for the best, rather than risk it being scooped by a rival media outlet.

That’s no way for the Hong Kong media to defend its freedoms in such an uncertain legal environment. And that’s why this book fills such an important vacuum. As Ms. Weisenhaus points out, practical guides to the legal framework in which journalists must operate are commonplace in the Western world but, until now, have been sadly absent from the English-language market in Hong Kong.

Merely knowing the law is, of course, far from enough to protect press freedom. But it is a good start, not least in better equipping journalists to fight against laws that seek to take those freedoms away. If Hong Kong Media Law plays even a modest part in that task, it will perform a valuable role in shoring up Hong Kong’s fragile press freedom.

Mr. Gittings, a former journalist in Hong Kong, is an assistant professor in law at the University of Hong Kong’s School of Professional and Continuing Education.