| After only five years of reunification with the mainland, Hong Kong has shown many signs of eroding judicial independence. This essay will highlight how the distinct relationship between the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and the People's Republic of China, and the obscuring of jurisdictions of different branches of government under the Basic Law, calls for reforms to its criminal legislation. The purpose is not to make a detailed comparative study, but rather to address many inadequacies of the existing clauses of the Juvenile Offenders Ordinance in Hong Kong and how it fails to offer young persons much needed protection against prosecutorial rights in a modernizing world. The Young Offenders Act of Canada will be used as measurement of the minimal threshold of due process rights. |
