The Hong Kong Bar Association is asking the High Court to overturn a disciplinary panel’s decision that its complaint against retired barrister and former legislator Margaret Ng Ngoi Yee was not established. The challenge centres on whether her criminal conviction should itself be enough to establish professional misconduct.
Ng was convicted of participating in an unauthorised assembly at the 18 August 2019 rally and sentenced to nine months’ imprisonment, suspended for two years. In June 2026, the professional disciplinary panel for barristers found the Association’s complaint against her not established.
The Association argues that the panel was wrong to consider Ng’s political motive and that her conviction alone should establish misconduct. At the hearing, the Association’s counsel argued that the offence was serious, saying police had prohibited the rally on public-safety and public-order grounds and alleging that Ng held a banner and led the procession despite the prohibition. The Association says the panel’s decision risks giving the public the impression that barristers may disregard the law.
The judicial review hearing opened at the High Court on 9 November 2026. The Association wants the panel’s decision overturned and its complaint upheld, with a declaration that Ng breached the barristers’ conduct code and a reprimand, or the matter returned to the panel for reconsideration.