Hong Kong court shuts down final appeals in “Hong Kong 47” case

Hong Kong’s Court of Appeal has upheld the convictions and sentences of leading pro-democracy figures jailed under the national security law, closing one of the last major legal avenues in the city’s most consequential political trial since the 2019 protest movement.

The ruling on Monday rejected appeals from 11 defendants, including prominent former lawmakers Leung Kwok-hung, Lam Cheuk-ting, Raymond Chan and Helena Wong, along with former journalist Gwyneth Ho. The court also dismissed challenges to their prison terms, which range from four to 10 years.

The case — widely known as the “Hong Kong 47” — centres on the opposition camp’s unofficial primary election held in July 2020. The vote was intended to select candidates for the Legislative Council and, if successful at the polls, to give the pro-democracy bloc the numbers needed to veto the government budget and press for political concessions such as universal suffrage and greater police accountability.

Authorities framed that strategy as a plan to paralyse the government. In their original 2024 judgment, the judges said the activists’ approach would have undermined executive authority and triggered a constitutional crisis. Prosecutors argued throughout the trial that the goal was to force the city’s leader from office.

The defence maintained that using the legislature’s budgetary powers was consistent with Hong Kong’s Basic Law. During the appeal hearing, defence lawyer Erik Shum told the court that lawmakers should be able to veto spending as a form of “check and balance”, adding:

“In order to check the unpopular exercise of powers by the executive, one of the important measures is to tie the purse.”

That argument did not persuade the appellate bench, which left both the convictions and the sentences intact. One acquittal did survive: the court upheld the earlier not-guilty verdict for former district councillor Lawrence Lau after the prosecution attempted to overturn it.

The scale of the case reflects the breadth of the 2020 arrests, when police detained dozens of opposition politicians, activists, unionists and academics aged between 28 and 69. Many had been elected in previous local contests. Some of those who appealed have already spent close to five years in custody.

The legal campaign unfolded against the backdrop of the sweeping national security law imposed by Beijing in June 2020, a measure that followed months of mass protests and fundamentally reshaped Hong Kong’s political landscape. Since then, opposition parties have effectively disappeared from formal politics, and civil society organisations and independent media have faced mounting pressure.

The outcome of the appeals comes as other high-profile prosecutions continue to draw international scrutiny. Earlier this month, media tycoon Jimmy Lai received a 20-year sentence in a separate national security case, a decision that media and rights groups called “cruel and profoundly unjust”.