Ronny Tong

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Tong was born in Hong Kong in 1950. His ancestral hometown is Xinhui, Guangdong province. He attended Queen's College, Hong Kong and studied law at the University of Hong Kong, where he graduated top of his class and with first-class honours. He then further received his Bachelor of Civil Law degree from St Edmund Hall, Oxford. He was called to the Bar by the Middle Temple and achieved top marks in the Bar Exams. He took silk in 1990 and was the chairman of the Hong Kong Bar Association from 1999 to 2001. He continues to practice from Temple Chambers, where he served as Head of Chambers from 2001 to 2006.

Eight days after his election as Bar chairman on 21 January 1999, the Court of Final Appeal ruled that mainland Chinese children born before their parents became Hong Kong permanent residents were entitled to right of abode in the city. In June 1999, the National People's Congress Standing Committee (NPCSC) made an interpretation of the Basic Law that effectively overruled the city's top court in the case. Tong opposed the NPCSC's interpretation, warning that a "Damocles sword" was hanging over the head of the Court of Final Appeal as a result of the government's refusal to rule out requesting Beijing to interpret the law in future cases. He said the failure to make a public promise not to seek further interpretations of the Basic Law from Beijing had damaged public confidence in the rule of law. "Confidence in our legal system and the independence of our judiciary are bound to suffer," he said in his annual report to barristers.

Tong also targeted then Secretary for Justice Elsie Leung Oi-sie's handling of the Sally Aw Sian case, in which the publishing tycoon was not prosecuted for a fraud plot involving her company although she was named as a conspirator in the charges.

Tong sat as a Deputy High Court Judge in 2002.

Early political career

He ran in the 2002 Election Committee Subsector by-elections in the Legal sub-sector, which was responsible for electing the Chief Executive of Hong Kong in the 2002 election.

In 2002, he co-founded the Article 23 Concern Group with former Bar Association chairmen Audrey Eu Yuet-mee and Alan Leong Kah-kit, to oppose the government's attempt to implement Article 23 of the Basic Law, which they believed posed a threat to civil liberties and basic freedoms. He entered the spotlight as a legal expert when half a million Hong Kong people took to the streets in 2003 to protest against the proposed Article 23 anti-subversion bill that was later shelved. After 1 July protest, the group transformed into the Article 45 Concern Group to call for universal suffrage in 2007 and 2008, as required under Article 45 of the Basic Law.

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