劉淑嫻

English

Lau Suk-han is a magistrate of the Magistrates' Courts of Hong Kong, born in Hong Kong. She obtained a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 1995, an LL.B. (external) from the University of London in 2003 and a Postgraduate Certificate in Laws from the University of Hong Kong the following year. She was called to the Hong Kong Bar in 2005 and qualified as a solicitor in Hong Kong in 2010. From 1997 to 2008 she served as a court prosecutor in the Department of Justice; she went into private practice in 2010 and was appointed a Special Magistrate in 2012. On 6 January 2020, Lau was appointed a Permanent Magistrate, taking office with Mok Tsz-chung, Leung Nga-yan and Lam Hei-wai; the appointment was made by the Chief Executive on the recommendation of the Judicial Officers Recommendation Commission. Special Magistrates and Permanent Magistrates are both judicial officers of the Magistrates' Courts; the former are often engaged on fixed-term contracts while the latter belong to the permanent establishment, and her move from Special to Permanent Magistrate reflects the Judiciary's recognition of her work. The Magistrates' Courts are Hong Kong's court of first instance for criminal matters, dealing with the great majority of criminal cases; magistrates also handle bail applications, the issue of warrants and certain small claims. Lau sits mainly at the Kwun Tong Magistrates' Courts and hears a wide range of cases. According to press reports, she has dealt with voyeurism, imposing a probation order on a university student, and has handled animal cruelty cases, including one in which a male security guard put a lost cat into a plastic bag and discarded it in a rubbish bin; in sentencing she said the cat had been deprived of its life and the case was serious, so a deterrent sentence was warranted, and imposed four months' imprisonment. She has experience as a prosecutor, in practice and on the bench, and remained on the list of serving magistrates as at 2026.