Jimmy Lai hit with costs order over failed court bids
The High Court ordered jailed former media tycoon Jimmy Lai to pay the legal costs of the authorities who thwarted his attempts to be allowed to hire a British lawyer to represent him in his upcoming national security trial, saying he should have taken the government's advice not to bother pursuing the matter. Lai had attempted to get a judicial review over the Committee for Safeguarding National Security banning barrister Timothy Owen from getting a work visa, arguing it had overstepped its powers.  In a separate legal challenge, Lai argued that Beijing's decision that foreign lawyers can only take part in national security trials with the chief executive's permission does not apply to his case, being as the courts had earlier ruled that Owen could represent him.  Earlier this year, High Court judge Jeremy Poon rejected both of Lai's legal bids, ruling that the courts have no jurisdiction over the security committee's work, and that the interpretation of the national security law by the National People's Congress Standing Committee (NPCSC) had cleared up "what the law has always been". Announcing his decision on Thursday regarding the legal costs of the failed challenges, Poon said Lai's application for a judicial review was "wholly unmeritorious" and his reading of the NPCSC's interpretation was "completely wrong". Poon noted that the Department of Justice had already warned Lai in a letter that his legal action was doomed to fail and that it would ask the court to make him pay its legal costs. "The applicant should have acted on the advice but unreasonably persisted," Poon said.  He ruled in favour of the authorities' claims for costs over both legal challenges, saying they are justified by Lai's "unreasonable litigation conduct". No figures for the legal costs involved have been revealed. Lai, who founded the now-defunct Apple Daily, is due to go on trial in September accused of colluding with foreign forces to endanger national security and conspiracy to print seditious publications.