判刑理由書撮要(由AI生成)
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The judgment indicates that on the morning of 18 November 2019, around one hundred people formed an unlawful assembly in the form of an “umbrella formation” in the area of Science Museum Road East and Science Museum Plaza, Tsim Sha Tsui, disregarding multiple police warnings and advancing towards the riot squad lines with the intent to disrupt order and intimidate the public. The police then deployed two riot squad platoons to encircle the crowd in time and arrested 135 people. Defendants three, four, seven, eight and nine were arrested at the scene, later pleaded guilty and admitted the facts, and were therefore convicted of unlawful assembly.
According to the sentencing principles established by the Court of Appeal in the Joshua Wong case, with punishment and deterrence as the primary purposes, a baseline sentence of 24 months’ imprisonment is applied, taking into account factors such as whether the assembly was premeditated, the number of participants, possession of weapons or tools, the duration of the gathering, its impact on public order at the location, the defendant’s background, and the timing of the plea, with the sentence reduced as appropriate based on the circumstances.
In this case, the defendants are all adults; although there was no obvious violent behaviour, they were carrying various protective and destructive equipment, indicating they came prepared and directly challenged police enforcement, disrupting normal traffic and Hong Kong’s international image. However, considering that they were first-time offenders, young, of good backgrounds, pleaded guilty and some showed remorse, the sentence was reduced by one-third or one-quarter at the court’s discretion.
The court held that violence and unlawful assembly undermine social order and harm democratic development and social progress, and that youthfulness is no excuse for reckless conduct; it is necessary to impose a severe sentence to uphold the rule of law and alert society, while also adhering to the principle of balancing education with punishment, to prevent similar incidents from worsening.
Defendants three and four each had a baseline sentence of 24 months, reduced by one-third for their guilty pleas, and were respectively sentenced to 16 months’ imprisonment, to be served immediately; defendant seven, due to his youth and family circumstances, was ordered to enter a rehabilitation centre rather than be imprisoned immediately; defendant eight had a 24-month baseline, reduced by 25%, and was sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment; defendant nine had a 21-month baseline, reduced by one-third, and was sentenced to 14 months’ imprisonment, to be served immediately. (Translated from Chinese to English by AI)
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