鄧少雄

English

Daniel Tang Siu-hung is a magistrate in Hong Kong, born in Hong Kong in 1965. He obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in Law and Psychology from the University of Keele in the United Kingdom in 1990 and a Postgraduate Certificate in Laws from the University of Hong Kong in 1992, followed by an LL.M. in Corporate and Financial Law from the University of Hong Kong in 2008. He was called to the Hong Kong Bar in 1992 and has been in private practice since 1993. On 17 September 2012 he was appointed a Permanent Magistrate, by the Chief Executive on the recommendation of the Judicial Officers Recommendation Commission. Tang read law and psychology as an undergraduate, training in two disciplines, and later studied corporate and financial law, so his academic background spans both criminal and commercial law. He now sits at Tuen Mun Magistrates' Courts as an Acting Principal Magistrate, coordinating the court's business and hearing cases; the post of Principal Magistrate is a relatively senior one in the magistracy, requiring the coordination of court business, the supervision of colleagues and the handling of more complex or high-profile cases. 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, whose Articles 88 and 92 set out the recommendation mechanism and the criteria for selection. Coming from the Bar after nearly twenty years in private practice, Tang joined the Judiciary and was later promoted to Acting Principal Magistrate on the strength of his judicial experience, an example of advancement from within; his combined background in law and psychology is relevant to cases concerning the credibility of witnesses or the mental state of defendants.