林文瀚

English

Johnson Lam Man-hon was born in Hong Kong in August 1961 and attended King's College. He obtained an LL.B. from the University of Hong Kong in 1983 and the Postgraduate Certificate in Laws the following year, was called to the Hong Kong Bar in 1984 and practised privately from 1985 for about sixteen years, mainly in civil and commercial litigation with a particular focus on property and family law, handling many land-ownership, tenancy and matrimonial cases. He joined the Judiciary as a District Judge in 2001, was appointed a Judge of the Court of First Instance of the High Court in 2003 and a Justice of Appeal of the Court of Appeal in 2012, becoming a Vice-President of the Court of Appeal on 2 September 2013. He chaired several mediation working groups and, as a judge of the Court of First Instance, dealt with major commercial and probate cases, including the PCCW privatisation case and the estate dispute of the late Chinachem chairman Nina Wang, as well as the domestic helpers' right of abode litigation. He has handled many contentious cases in public law, election petitions and human rights, and is noted for clearly reasoned judgments. In 2019 he and the acting Chief Judge of the High Court, Poon Siu-chor, dealt with the appeal over the judicial review of the anti-mask law, first granting a stay of the ruling and later refusing the government's application for a further stay. On 30 July 2021 he was appointed a Permanent Judge of the Court of Final Appeal, on the recommendation of the Judicial Officers Recommendation Commission, filling the seat vacated when Andrew Cheung became Chief Justice; he is also a designated judge under the National Security Law.