On 19 December 2000, the Chief Property Manager was found guilty of four counts of misconduct in public office and sentenced to nine months’ imprisonment.
He appealed against his conviction while the Department of Justice sought a review of the sentence on the grounds that it was too lenient.
On 21 August 2001, the Court of Appeal dismissed his appeal and increased his jail term from nine to 30 months. The Court ruled that since the misconduct of the Chief Property Manager had spanned a number of years, causing incalculable damage to the reputation of bidding procedures for government contracts, the nine months’ term was inadequate to reflect the seriousness of the case.
On 3 September 2001, the Chief Property Manager lodged a further appeal on the grounds that this common law offence was too broad and it was difficult to define in which circumstances misconduct would be indictable. At the same time, the spirit of the Basic Law was to ensure the laws should be clearly defined. The imprecise definition of “misconduct in public office” at law might offend the requirement of the Basic Law.
He was subsequently granted leave to appeal to the Court of Final Appeal (CFA).
On 10 July 2002, CFA unanimously dismissed the Chief Property Manager’s appeal against his conviction and he was immediately sent to jail. The judgement stated that “dishonesty” of the Chief Property Manager was apparent as he wilfully concealed his family relationship with the director of HighSecu.
On the defendant’s contention that the definition of the offence of misconduct in public office was imprecise, the judges considered that the common law offence of misconduct in public office was meant to deal a blow to those deliberate acts beyond “corruption” and “dishonesty”. The offence was necessarily cast in general terms because it was designed to cover many forms of misconduct on the part of public officers so as to bring offenders to justice.
The CFA also held that the broad terms in which the offence was cast were sufficient to enable the public officer to regulate his conduct. The giving of a more specific description of “misconduct” would involve a loss of flexibility and run the risk that the net would fail to catch some public officers who were involved in serious misconduct.