NG KANG-CHUNG
KC.NG@SCMP.COM
PUBLISHED : Sunday, 27 December, 2015, 2:36am
UPDATED : Sunday, 27 December, 2015, 2:42am
Villagers are angry, warns lawyer Alfred Lam. Photo: David Wong
Rural leaders are organising a HK$10 million legal fighting fund for a group of indigenous villagers jailed for trading their traditional right to build small houses.
The move follows a recent court ruling which found the decades-old practice of off-loading the right to build to be criminal.
Representatives of the Heung Yee Kuk, the powerful rural body that represents the interests of indigenous residents of the New Territories, hopes to meet lands officials next month to discuss the implications of the court case.
They estimate as many as 40 per cent of the 40,000 small village houses were built under such arrangements.
Alfred Lam Kwok-cheong, a solicitor and an ex-officio member of the kuk, warned that villagers were angry and did not rule out “radical” action if the government failed to satisfy their demands.
“If villagers were to be locked up for trading their land rights, I am afraid Hong Kong’s jails would be overflowing,” said Lam.
The row centres on the jailing of 11 villagers for defrauding the Lands Department over the construction of small houses. The villagers were found guilty of illegally selling their rights to build small houses to a developer for a total of HK$4.3 million. Those convicted – all men – were jailed for up to three years and are appealing.
Kuk chairman Kenneth Lau Ip-keung said: “We hope to have a meeting with the government as soon as possible to clarify the small house policy.” He said villagers’ right to build small houses was guaranteed by the Basic Law.
In a double-page newspaper advert on December 24, the rural body vowed to make requests to the National People’s Congress Standing Committee, the nation’s top legislature, to clarify what they were entitled to under Hong Kong’s mini-constitution.
The government introduced the small house policy in 1972. It applies only to native New Territories men descended through the male line from the resident of a recognised village in 1898.
Leung Fuk-yuen, Yuen Long rural leader, said: “Some villagers have land rights but do not have land to build small houses. And others own land but have no land rights. They co-operate so both can have small houses to live in. What is the problem with that?”
Lam claims that in 2007 then-secretary for development Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor stated in a letter that villagers suspected of transferring their rights would not face criminal prosecution.
A spokesman for the Lands Department disputed that interpretation: “The letter could not possibly be interpreted as the government allowing the selling of small house rights and agreeing that such acts would not be subject to criminal prosecution.”
http://m.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-crime/article/1895005/rural-leaders-amassing-war-chest-villagers-jailed-homes
