Two cases reported on last night's news make me wonder if Hong Kong's judges live on the same planet as the rest of us.
In the first case, a part-time music teacher was convicted of indecent assault against two of his pupils. In passing sentence, the judge stated that the assailant was neither a paedophile nor a homosexual, noting that he had been with his girlfriend for ten years. In the real world, men who are neither paedophile nor homosexual do not usually go around groping little boys, but perhaps they have different rules where this judge comes from.
In other news: Oscar Wilde was married.
In the second case, a young man who blew off most of his fingers when a home-made bomb he was holding exploded was sent to a training centre. The judge noted that he only made the bomb "to relieve his anxiety". Well, don't we all? Though if I was forced to live in Tin Shui Wai, I might be anxious to blow the place up myself.
Trying to make sense of a weird world - and maybe make it a little better. If that's not possible, then laugh at it. Those with shorter attention spans may enjoy us on Twitter at Private Pebble.
1 comment:
To get an idea of what the average HK judge is like, and the attitudes s/he holds, there's no better (if garbled) introduction than Benjamin Liu's How Are We Judged?. I may try to post on it, but having just flicked through the pages, it's difficult to render it into sense. Worrying.
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