Congratulations to the HKMA Badminton Team. HKMA was the first runner-up in this year's
Joint Professional Badminton Competition. While watching the games, I thought of the old
days when we needed to be linesmen in the inter-school badminton competitions. In fact due to the constraints and resources,
members from opposing teams had to take turns to be umpires and linesmen. Arguments sometimes arose. It was the transient recall of such moments
that made my mind drift to think about judgments.
In fact this month was also characterized by arguments arising from
different judgments. On August 18, the
HKU Centenary Ceremony turned out to be the focus of heated debate and protest.
There was even a chapter found in
Wikipedia captioned "Hong Kong 818 incident". It wrote: "The Hong Kong 818 incident was a case of alleged civil rights
violations that occurred on 18 August, 2011 at Hong Kong University during a
visit by Li Keqiang, the Vice Premier of the People's Republic of China. His arrival at the school led to a lock-down
and complete takeover of the school by the Hong Kong Police force. Controversy arose as a result of claims by the
media and students that their rights had been violated." The argument and judgment were between security
and human rights. Then another minor
argument arose from the "complete rubbish" judgment of Mr. Henry TANG
on the argument of whether the government violated people's rights in the above
incident.
On September 2, the league of Social Democrats activists were
acquitted of disorderly conduct charges over protest in which Mr. Donald TSANG
said he was struck on the chest. This
happened during a protest outside the Hong Kong Museum of History on March 1. On the same day, September 2, the second of
the two Legco by-election public consultation forums was gatecrashed by
protesters. Mr. Stephen LAM and others
had to flee backstage. Some claimed
injured in the event.
On August 22, a High Court judge started hearing arguments in the
landmark case filed by a Filipino domestic worker, who had challenged a legal
provision denying permanent residency to hundreds of thousands of foreign maids
in Hong Kong. On June 8, in a split
decision, the Court of Final Appeal of Hong Kong determined that a sovereign
nation could not be sued in the Hong Kong courts. The matter was then referred to the China's
National People's Congress Standing Committee in Beijing. On August 26, the NPC Standing Committee
unanimously affirmed the decision and declared that companies could not sue
sovereign states to recover assets. On
September 2, Mr. Steven CHAN, TVB General Manager, was found not guilty of all
charges against him on wrongfully concealing from TVB payment he received and
on cheating five TVB artists.
Don't think that making judgment is easy. Even professionals like judges would be
biased. Concerning the domestic helpers
case mentioned above, the Secretary for Justice had to issue a statement to
urge the public that: "when they are
minded to express any view, to show the greatest respect to our Court and our
legal system, and to avoid as far as possible making any comments which might
prejudice or affect the Court's adjudication of the case. This would enable our Court to make its
decision fairly and independently, in accordance with the law and admissible
evidence, and thereby safeguard judicial independence and the rule of law in
Hong Kong."
All these complicated judgments contrasted the judgments made by a
linesman. However, going back to the old
days and the simple job of a linesman, the simple judgment is not as simple as
it appears upon analysis. First of all,
the rules governing the judgment of "in" and "out" need to
be clear. For example, a shuttlecock
falling partially on the line is regarded an "in". Second, environmental factors count. For example, is the line drawn properly? Is it solid and equal without getting blurred
or peeling off from wear and tear? Third
come the basic functions of the observer, i.e., the linesman. He needs to have reasonably good eye-sight. He needs to be able to concentrate on the
lines while he may wish to watch the magnificent match. He also needs to capture the split-second when
the shuttlecock falls on the ground and to relay this signal to his brain to
make the judgment. Last come the higher
functions of the judge, i.e., the linesman. Human is distinguished from machine in that
human can think and can be biased by emotion and over-riding thoughts. The linesman can be eager to see his home team
winning. He may thus either
intentionally or unintentionally call a wrong judgment. It may be so corrupted that someone else is
"buying" the linesman to make biased judgments. In some cases, which might be much more common
than we can think of, the lineman himself is running his higher functions to
the extreme of human ability. He
second-guesses and analyses what others, especially those powerful ones, would
like to see the results to be. He is
ready to make bogus calls either to avoid the slightest possibility of
upsetting the powerful, or to wait for the rare chance to let the powerful know
that he is doing whatever to appease them.
It is this higher function of the judgment maker, when applies
inappropriately, that causes many of the problems in judgment.
(Source: HKMA News September 2011)
