陳炳宙

English

Kenneth Chan Ping-chau is a magistrate in Hong Kong, born in Hong Kong in 1966. He obtained a Bachelor of Arts from the Open University of Hong Kong in 1997 and an LL.B. from the University of London in the United Kingdom in 2003, followed by a Postgraduate Certificate in Laws from the University of Hong Kong in 2004. He was called to the Hong Kong Bar in 2005 and began private practice the same year, and on 20 November 2014 was appointed a Permanent Magistrate, by the Chief Executive on the recommendation of the Judicial Officers Recommendation Commission. Chan's educational path is somewhat distinctive: he first obtained a Bachelor of Arts from the Open University of Hong Kong and only later read law in the United Kingdom and qualified at the Hong Kong Bar, making him one of the judicial officers who entered the law relatively late. This route of completing studies step by step through the Open University and overseas external courses reflects the diversity of the sources from which Hong Kong's judicial officers are drawn, not all of whom come from traditional full-time law programmes. The magistracy is Hong Kong's court of first instance for criminal matters, handling the great majority of criminal cases, from summary offences to offences triable on indictment. All judges and judicial officers are appointed by the Chief Executive on the independent recommendation of the Judicial Officers Recommendation Commission, under the Basic Law. Article 88 provides that judges shall be appointed by the Chief Executive on the recommendation of an independent commission, and Article 92 provides that they shall be chosen on the basis of their judicial and professional qualities. Chan joined the Judiciary after some nine years in private practice, moving from barrister to magistrate and from advocate to neutral adjudicator; his later start shows that professional ability, not the timing of one's entry into the law, is the decisive factor.