The Common Law in Two Voices: Language, Law, and the Postcolonial Dilemma in Hong Kong - Hardcover

Ng, Kwai Hang

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0804761647 ISBN 13: 9780804761642

Verlag: Stanford University Press, 2009

Inhaltsangabe

Hong Kong is one of the very few places in the world where the common law can be practiced in a language other than English. Introduced into the courtroom over a decade ago, Cantonese has significantly altered the everyday working of the common law in China's most Westernized city. In The Common Law in Two Voices, Ng explores how English and Cantonese respectively reinforce and undermine the practice of legal formalism.

This first-ever ethnographic study of Hong Kong's unique legal system in the midst of social and political transition, this book provides important insights into the social nature of language and the work of institutions. Ng contends that the dilemma of legal bilingualism in Hong Kong is emblematic of the inherent tensions of postcolonial Hong Kong. Through the legal dramas presented in the book, readers will get a fresh look at the former British colony that is now searching for its identity within a powerful China.

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Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

Kwai Hang Ng is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of California, San Diego.

Kwai Hang Ng is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of California, San Diego.

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THE COMMON LAW IN TWO VOICES

Language, Law, and the Postcolonial Dilemma in Hong KongBy Kwai Hang Ng

Stanford University Press

Copyright © 2009 Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8047-6164-2

Contents

Preface...........................................................................................ixAcknowledgments...................................................................................xiiiA Note on Orthography and Transcription...........................................................xviiA Note on Terminology.............................................................................xxi1 The Challenge of Legal Bilingualism in Hong Kong................................................32 Juridical Formalism and the Mechanism of Legal Rearticulation...................................333 The Practices of English and Cantonese in Colonial Hong Kong....................................504 English Courtrooms in Hong Kong: The Haven of Formalism.........................................795 Marshaling the Legal Boundaries: Court Interpreters and Juridical Formalism.....................1206 Cantonese Courtrooms: Formalism in Flux.........................................................1637 Language Ideology and Legal Bilingualism........................................................2038 Institutional Adaptation to Legal Bilingualism..................................................2359 Legal Bilingualism and the Postcolonial Dilemma.................................................254Appendix: Methodology.............................................................................273List of Abbreviations.............................................................................281Notes.............................................................................................283List of Cases Cited...............................................................................301Bibliography......................................................................................303Index.............................................................................................319

Chapter One

The Challenge of Legal Bilingualism in Hong Kong

The englishness of the legal system in Hong Kong holds many things for outsiders to marvel at: the seventeenth-century English wigs and gowns worn by judges and lawyers, the elaborate decorum of lordship and learned friendship, and the stentorian tone of some of the judges. All give the impression that one might well be in an English court.

Excerpt from an English Trial in the Court of First Instance

COUNSEL: if the estate was worth that amount of money, did you know then what your entitlement was worth at the time?

WITNESS: No, I don't know.

COUNSEL: Did you ever find out?

WITNESS: Is it worthwhile to find out?

COUNSEL: Are you saying that if the amount is of that ... if the estate is of that amount, it is not worthwhile to find out how much your entitlement was?

WITNESS: I didn't say that. No, it's just that whether it is worthwhile for me is not because of the financial term, you see, see what I mean.... COUNSEL: Do you understand why you are here? You want a share of your father's estate. Is that correct?

WITNESS: I'm entitled to a share of my father's estate.

COUNSEL: Correct. And are you telling us ...

WITNESS: OK. And also I am seeking for justice

JUDGE: Oh, please. Let's just stick to the facts, all right? This isn't Canada, or Australia, or America. Let's sort of leave aside that kind of, that kind of thing.

WITNESS: OK.

JUDGE: And please try and confine yourself to the facts.

WITNESS: OK.

JUDGE: If he asks you what somebody said, never mind, fair enough. Just tell us if you can remember what the person said, and say what it was. Or if you can't remember what the person said, please just tell us that you can't remember. All right?

WITNESS: Yeah.

JUDGE: Thank you.

COUNSEL: I'm grateful my Lord.

In his popular Rumpole novels, John Mortimer was offering a semirealistic portrayal when he described how the highly successful Phyllida (Trant) Erskine-Brown, whom Rumpole, Mortimer's alter ego, admiringly names the "Portia of our chambers," would occasionally disappear from her chambers for a few weeks to take on a case in Hong Kong. In fact, a barrister from London would feel right at home in a courtroom in Hong Kong. At least, that is, until he stepped into a Cantonese-language one.

Excerpt from a Cantonese Trial in the District Court

WITNESS: Altogether, I gave them altogether. They needed money to spend for the new Year. So I advanced the money.

COUNSEL: Yes.

WITNESS: They needed money to spend for the New Year, they said to me.

COUNSEL: That means you at that time ...

WITNESS: Sometimes there weren't many jobs for people to do. Their lives were very miserable. [sigh] That's so true. Workers didn't have money to spend for the new Year. They needed money to buy their food. Mr. Barrister, do you know?

COUNSEL: I think I do know.

WITNESS: [laugh] What?

COUNSEL: I think I'm more miserable. [laughter from the workers]

WITNESS: So, so [laugh] ...

JUDGE: You two shouldn't keep doing this here ...

COUNSEL: I'm sorry.

WITNESS: [simultaneously] is that right?

The difference between the English and Cantonese courtrooms lies not simply in the switch of language. There is something more fundamental, something at once more elusive and yet gripping that accompanies the switch. In the English trial example, we see that a judge spells out a certain hidden vision of law for the witness, who tells the court that he is looking for justice. The judge's cold, almost Benthamite response to the witness's appeal to justice ("Oh, please") suggests a formalistic vision prevalent among legal professionals in Hong Kong-that law should be taken more as a rules-based adjudicatory machinery than as a freewheeling expression of the society's morality and values. English courtrooms are governed by rules, extensively so in Hong Kong. A typical courtroom exchange between a barrister and a witness is orderly, detached, and impersonal (I discuss this in more detail in Chapter 4). Witnesses are boxed in, both literally and figuratively; their narratives are on a leash; and their replies are strictly confined to direct answers to the questions raised by counsel. Hong Kong, we are told, is not Canada or Australia or America, where law more openly values and incorporates social norms of equity, fairness, and justice in its articulation. As the judge in the example pronounced, a witness should stay with the facts. Of course, as we will see, there is a lot to be said about what counts as the facts in the court of law. On the other hand, in the second example, we are given a brief glimpse of the lively exchanges that are not uncommon in Cantonese courtrooms. The exchange is fluid, jaunty, and, above all, carnivalesque, in the subversive Bakhtinian sense of the term. Witnesses are let loose; they talk more and are often more pugnacious. Freestyle storytelling, intense sparring matches, peppery sarcasm, and slaphappy remarks prevail in this environment, and the trials are louder, noisier, and often edgier. They are also less predictable. Sometimes...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Stanford University Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2009
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0804761647
• ISBN 13: 9780804761642
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 352
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: preigu; mail@preigu.de; ; Lengericher Landstr. 19; Osnabrück; 49078; Deutschland