簡介
Listen to #Hashtag Hong Kong every Sunday morning at 8.15
Focussing on issues affecting civil society, we'll hear from representatives of NGOs, associations, statutory bodies, and non-profit groups.
(Sundays 8.15am - 8.25am)
最新
Kay McARDLE, Director & Founding Member of Equal Justice
As most will know, the law can be complicated, confusing and costly. In Hong Kong, 1.394 million people live at or below the poverty line and that population cannot afford to pay private lawyers’ fees.
We know from the Department of Justice’s 2008 consultancy study on the “Demand for and Supply of Legal and Related Services” that 79% of people in Hong Kong did not know what to do when faced with a legal problem and that 40% of respondents for that survey had a legal problem. Using these numbers, we estimate that the pool of disadvantaged people with a legal problem is 550,000, or thereabouts, and, of those, some 440,000 do not know where to go for help.
And so the fact is that, for HK’s poorest people, the most disadvantaged people, there is a legal access gap. The people we serve are underprivileged and are often also very vulnerable. Typical legal problems include things like family matters, employment and discrimination, education, housing, immigration, criminal matters and sometimes, personal injury, healthcare, probate and of course increasingly online scams.
They extraordinary people face significant disadvantages due to a confluence of factors: the complexity of the legal system, a lack of financial resources and education, cultural and gender access to justice barriers as well as an absence of legal and digital literacy. Language barriers can actually be a major barrier. Limited financial resources restrict people’s access to private legal representation. Lack of education and awareness about their rights further exacerbates the issue they face, making them vulnerable to exploitation and unfair treatment. There are also some systemic biases within the legal system can also disproportionately affect marginalised communities.
The government services and clinics may not always provide interpreters to non-Cantonese or non-English-speaking people, which can really complicate access to information, advice and/or representation. There are also Cultural stigmas around legal action, particularly in family or employment disputes, which can make individuals not seek help early enough, which means there is an over reliance on informal networks rather than the formal legal channels. And all these mean that even if the legal problem is settled for now, the outcome is not legally enforceable and it means thee can be even more problems further down the line. Overcoming these barriers requires comprehensive legal aid, community outreach, and also we would hope for some systemic reforms to ensure equal access to justice.
Hong Kong has limited publicly funded community legal information and advice centres. While the Department of Justice, the legal professional bodies, the Duty Lawyer Service and the Legal Aid Department provide some support, this does not cover all cases. In fact, it also only addresses cases once a person is able to identified and not everyone knows that the problem they have has a legal solution, let alone being able to name it and even to work out what to do about it.
Equal Justice fills this initial void by offering assistance in the early problem identification phases, helping with settlement to avoid stressful and costly court proceedings, linking disadvantaged people to lawyers and helping them throughout their case journey so they are supported, can understand what is going on and can navigate the system well enough to make informed decisions. And why? To ensure that they avoid any further hardship and specifically poverty.
We provide legal first aid - to disadvantaged people - who cannot afford or otherwise access the law and legal support. We empower people and communities with legal education, information, and support, to ensure that justice isn’t just a privilege for the wealthy and well-connected. We give free, face-to-face, tailored legal information and support, and and also refer cases to lawyers and counsellors. So far, we have worked on 3,000 cases, and we’re just 5 years old. Ad the people we help are 50% women, 30% children and 20% men.
When it comes to generalised legal support for Hong Kong’s disadvantaged population, organisations like Equal Justice and university clinics rely heavily on pro bono lawyers. But, demand often outstrips supply, especially for time-intensive cases like child abuse or neglect, intimate partner violence, discrimination and family disputes.
We have partnerships with 100+ amazing law firms and 54+ charities are robust but may not be able to scale given the widespread needs that we are already experienced. And our caseload has increased ~40% each year for the last 3 years, which is quite significant.
In March 2025, rather wonderfully, the HK Bar Association announced that they will be partnering with Equal Justice and 3 other NGOs more closely to bridge the community legal access gap. This is a very welcome endorsement.
重溫
John Ng, Careers Master of St Paul's College
How has life treated you? Each of you may have a different answer at different stages of life.
When I was small, I wished to stand tall.
I asked my teacher, “What will I be?”
Here’s what my teacher said to me,
“Any dream will do.”
I’m sure many of you have been encouraged to do the same: pursuing your own dreams. But I doubt whether many adolescents have dreams of their own in this day and age. For those who do, I am wondering whether the dreams contribute to genuine happiness. The World Happiness Report 2024 sounds alarm on the mental well-being of the youth. Our youth’s happiness has hit a new low.
Many teenagers are living with the mundanity of daily routines, and worryingly, lack long-term plans of their own. With a lack of personal life goals, these youngsters go with the flow, and tend to follow a fragmented path, which is not sustainable in the long-term. When facing headwinds, they can become disoriented and experience mental breakdown easily. Their setbacks in life include unsatisfactory academic results, huge pressure from parents and the deprivation of social life. To our dismay, despair often leads to tragic stories.
Career and life planning is particularly important for our youth. Gone are the days when we were burdened with making important life decisions, such as choosing university courses or applying for a job, in the nick of time. Life is a journey and it should be perceived this way.
Now I have students of my own,
they ask me, “What will I be?”
I say to them, “Whatever will be will be.”
Of course, I am not encouraging them to engage in inaction. What I am telling them is that they should plan ahead without excessive planning.
There is a world of opportunities awaiting them. I usually tell them this: go all out and explore. Yet nothing should be set in stone to start with. Nor should they overwhelm themselves with as many experiences as possible. Remember, it is not the more, the merrier. They should embrace new opportunities while committing themselves to a few experiences at a time. Gradually, they will form their own goals, work towards the goals, review them from time to time, form new life priorities and build career resilience. It’s okay to face hardships. Don’t be failed by the future but let future find us. Life planning is a perennial and dynamic process.
To be future ready, we are often told that we should adapt to the emerging AI world. I am not worried about Gen Alpha’s preparedness for the AI world because they are generally tech-savvy. What I am worried about is their exposure to the real world experience. When some youngsters have spent too much time in the virtual world, they only know how to write fragmented sentences as social media messages instead of composing proper emails; or they only know how to customise their online experience without feeling the need to collaborate with others. Worse still, some of them only know how to input commands in order to generate music and artworks while losing human creativity. I hope none of these will become the norm or else our future will be bleak.
Our future will be bleak because the youth is our future. If they thrive, we thrive. That’s why I encourage NGOs, schools and businesses to work together to organise experiential activities for our youth so as to connect their learning experiences with the real world. Nothing is more valuable than providing them with mentorship and internship. Giving them a flavour of the workplace allows them to appreciate the beauty of teamwork and gain practical experiences making them more humanistic. In fact, many of our students are grateful for the enlightening and life-transforming experiences of learning from mentors experienced in the field. Their experiences are conducive to their career planning.
At the end of the day, we are reduced to a name, or slightly better, a character. I hope when we reach that note, we can proudly say:
“I lived a life that's full
And traveled each and every highway
And more, much more than this
I did it my way”
These few lines are taken from the song “My Way” by Paul Anka. “My way” does not denote a solitary journey. Rather, it means that we, especially our youth, should navigate the world ourselves, have forward planning and chart a course that suits us best. If we can, Hong Kong will prosper.
