Yau Ka-po asks court to temporarily stop development while judicial review he filed on the case is processed, saying government should not be selling off such sites
CHRIS.LAU@SCMP.COM
PUBLISHED : Monday, 18 January, 2016, 11:52pm
UPDATED : Monday, 18 January, 2016, 11:52pm
Green Sense president Roy Tam Hoi-pong (centre) makes his views known on the case outside the High Court yesterday. Photo: David Wong
A university student yesterday asked a court to impose an interim injunction to block plans by the government to allow developers to build on a section of green-belt land in Tai Po while the courts process two lawsuits he has filed on the case.
Yau Ka-po, represented in court by barrister Valentine Yim See-tai, requested the court impose the injunction so as to not give the developers a window of opportunity to sign a deal on the piece of land on Shan Tong Road before the result of an imminent judicial review on the case.
Yim warned the High Court that not imposing an injunction would allow time for a deal to be struck to build housing that could make it very difficult legally for the government to retrieve the land from the developers in the event that the judicial review later ruled such a deal invalid.
Yau, a student at the Institute of Education, has lodged a lawsuit against the Town Planning Board over several lots of land, including the one on Shan Tong Road, which is now awaiting a judicial review hearing.
He has also lodged a lawsuit against the decision by the Chief Executive-in-Council to approve the tendering process on the Shan Tong Road site despite the ongoing judicial review proceedings, which were given a hearing yesterday. He has also applied for an injunction regarding this case.
Yim argued that if the judicial reviews were to overturn both bodies’ decisions on the land, which is worth HK$5 billion, “it would be grossly unfair to any developer” who would have signed a deal. But without an injunction, a contract could be signed before the court proceedings reach a conclusion.
Yim added that if the judicial review eventually ruled against the development, there would still be a high chance the developer would be immune to the court’s decision.
But Johnny Mok Shu-luen SC, representing the council, argued Yau should not have been granted leave to apply for the judicial reviews because he and his legal team had failed to make “full and frank disclosure”.
Yau’s lawyers alleged the government had breached the public’s legitimate expectations by tapping into land not devegetated, deserted, or formed – a kind of green-belt land it said it would not touch.
But Mok said Secretary of Development Paul Chan Ma-po and Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying had mentioned on several occasions in the Legislative Council, in policy addresses and in blog posts as early as 2013 that the government would seek such sites of low conservation value.
He also asked Madam Justice Queeny Au Yeung Kwai-yue to consider the implications of an injunction. He warned 56 other plots of lands of a similar nature might also be barred from development on the same grounds.
The judge will hand down her ruling and reasons at a later date.
http://m.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health-environment/article/1902726/hong-kong-student-seeks-court-injunction-block
