Rule of Law in Hong Kong

Hong Kong prides itself on having the “Rule of Law.” One problem as I see it is that some laws on the books shouldn’t be there and some new ones should be enacted.

Today, I read about two such “missing links.” One, there are no laws protecting people from domestic abuse - spouses or children. Two there are no laws protecting people from age discrimination.

In the first case, there were over 3,300 domestic violence complaints in 2004 which could not be pursued or even followed up on. This is a disgrace. Until a family member kills someone, they are protected from prosecution. This actually happened in a recent situation, where a woman complained multiple times to no effect until her husband stabbed her and their twin daughters to death before killing himself.

In the second case, airlines with crew based in Hong Kong, have much younger retirement ages than they do in their own country. Japan Airlines is worst with a retirement age of 35 or 37 in Hong Kong but 65 in Japan. Cathay Pacific’s drop dead age is 45 everywhere they can get away with it. Bahrain’s Gulf Air has no fixed retirement age. I must admit that I was surprised that Gulf was the most liberal.

Seems to me that if Hong Kong wants to be a world class city, it needs to look at its laws and enact those that will protect people from those with the power to unfairly exploit or harm them.

By ejh | Permalink

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