More than 370 solicitors and international lawyers issued a statement yesterday condemning the use of force. Police on Sunday fired 87 tear gas canisters, used pepper spray and restrained protesters with batons. "Regardless of the technical legality or otherwise of such use of force by the police, their lack of self-restraint is an affront [to] the rule of law," they said.
The statement followed one by the Bar Association, which deplored the "excessive and disproportionate force" used on demonstrators in Admiralty. The Law Society has been silent.
Police actions have been defended by Chief Secretary Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor as reasonable.
Some of the signatories said they would help demonstrators file personal injury claims over the use of pepper spray and tear gas.
But solicitor and Democrat Albert Ho Chun-yan said such lawsuits would be difficult to win because the court might accept that the police had discretion to enforce the law.
Professor Simon Young Ngai-man, of the University of Hong Kong law faculty, queried the lawfulness of the police actions.
Writing on the faculty's blog, Young said police gave protesters neither enough warning nor enough time to disperse before firing tear gas.
Officers, Young said, aimed tear gas directly at protesters or into crowds, "suggesting that not the minimum level of force was used".
Carter Chim Ting-cheong, a member of the Bar Association's committee on constitutional affairs and human rights, said there were well-established rules that required the police to avoid excessive force while facilitating the safe expression of protesters' opinions.
Executive Council member Fanny Law Fan Chiu-fun apologised to the police for saying they should "explain" why tear gas was used. "I might have used the wrong word." she said, adding the use of tear gas "was reasonable".
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