Rimsky Yuen

Rimsky Yuen Kwok-keung (born 1964) is a lawyer and the third and current Secretary for Justice of Hong Kong. He took office on 1 July 2012.

Education and early career

Yuen studied law as an undergraduate at the University of Hong Kong and as a master's student at the City University of Hong Kong. He was called to the Hong Kong Bar in 1987. In 1995, he became qualified as a solicitor and advocate in Singapore. He held a temporary position as deputy registrar of the High Court of Hong Kong from 2002 to 2003; afterwards, he was appointed as a Senior Counsel.^[1] He later became chairman of the Hong Kong Bar Association.

In politics

In 2008, Yuen accepted a position as a member of the Guangdong committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) in a widely-criticised decision; a number of legislators in the pan-democratic camp, including Democratic Party chairman Albert Ho and Civic Party member Audrey Eu, called on Yuen to step down. Ronny Tong, who had declined a similar offer of appointment to the Guangdong CPPCC during his tenure as Bar Association head, also expressed his disappointment in Yuen and expressed his concerns over the potential for conflict of interest. In contrast, legislator Kwong Chi-kin of the Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions supported Yuen's appointment, stating that it would promote cooperation with mainland authorities; pro-Beijing newspaper Wen Wei Po also came out with an editorial denying that any conflict of interest arose by Yuen's appointment.^[2][3]

References