Episode 43 - John Budge

In this episode, we are honoured to be joined by solicitor John Budge who, aside from his career in the legal profession, has compiled an exemplary record of public service. John looks back on his four-plus decades in Hong Kong and talks passionately about his work in the community with a particular focus on two organisations close to his heart, the Hong Kong Club Foundation and Voice For Prisoners. He speaks with our Senior Partner Colin Cohen. Stay tuned. 

 00:31 Introduction and Welcome
 01:13 John Budge's Current Endeavors
 02:41 Early Days in Hong Kong
 06:06 Life and Work at Wilkinson Grist
 07:37 Public Service and Philanthropy
 20:13 Voice for Prisoners Initiative
 34:09 Reflections on Hong Kong's Challenges
 36:09 Conclusion and Final Thoughts 

Host: Colin Cohen
Director: Niall Donnelly
Producer and VO: Thomas Latter        

Transcript

[00:31:00] Colin: Good morning, everybody, or good afternoon, wherever you are. Today I'm delighted to be joined by my old friend and fellow solicitor, John Budge. Not only has he been a fixture in Hong Kong's legal landscape for more than 45 years, John is a philanthropist, community leader, champion of the disadvantaged, and staunch campaigner on behalf of our great city.

He has enjoyed a hugely interesting life. in the law and public service, and we are so grateful that he's agreed to join us to share some of his experience.

John, welcome to Law More, and as I always ask my guests, what's been keeping you busy recently?

[00:31:42] John: Well, firstly, Colin, thank you very much for inviting me to your podcast.

What's keeping me busy? Well, I've got so many projects that go on all the time. I'm not doing too much basic law these days. I've sort of given that up. I'm chairman of the Hong Kong Club Foundation, took up that job about a year after I retired from the partnership of Wilkinson Grist, where I've been since 1980.

 And that has kept me unbelievably busy. It's grown and grown and grown. We started with about 3 million Hong Kong dollars that we raised in the first year. We're now raising over 15 million dollars. And we're giving it to small NGOs in Hong Kong. So I spend a lot of time talking to these NGOs. And then I'm also very involved with Voice for Prisoners, and one of the directors is your former colleague, Mr.

Melville Boase. He's also one of the directors of Voice for Prisoners, and one of your earlier people who appeared in your podcast, Patricia Ho, she is also one of the directors of Voice for Prisoners. Voice for Prisoners is started up by a famous Catholic priest here called Father John Wotherspoon.

And he and I got together a few years ago because we felt strongly that there were far too many drug mules coming to Hong Kong. And what could we do about trying to stop drug mules from coming to Hong Kong. It's a long story, and I'm sure we'll talk about it later.

[00:33:10] Colin: Let's delve back a little bit and I'll go back to, 1978. That's when you arrived. What brought you to Hong Kong? How did you end up here?

[00:33:19] John: Well, I suppose that, like you and I, we were both economic migrants escaping from UK. When I left UK in the winter of 1978, arriving here on the 1st of November 1978, the day I qualified as a solicitor in England, so desperate was I to get out, it was just dreadful. I mean, the Trade unions were very much in control in those days.

Political maneuverings going on in Downing Street all the time. New prime ministers coming and going. It didn't look as though there was much future. And so when I saw jobs being advertised in Hong Kong, I applied and got a job. And at that time I joined, first of all, Johnson Stokes and Master. 

[00:34:03] Colin: It's quite A big law firm, and you worked for them 

[00:34:06] John: Couple of years.

[00:34:08] Colin: What exactly did you do when you first came here? What type of work you were doing? 

[00:34:10] John: I've always been a civil litigator. In recent times I've got to know a bit about crime, but I know very little about crime from a solicitor's point of view, from a practitioner's point of view. I've always been a civil litigator, and in those early days personal injuries general insurance cases. In those days, we of course had a manufacturing base in Hong Kong, so we used to do sale of goods cases. So just a general civil knockabout practice and fairly enjoyable.

[00:34:40] Colin: Yeah, I mean, it's very similar to me. In 1981, I arrived here because I was in London at the time. And Brixton riots, difficulties, lots of politics. The economics were pretty bad as well.

But I had an interest. I was offered a job for London at Herbert Smith. My old tutor, lecturer from Cambridge, and Lawrence Collins.

And, and in turn, I had a job offer in Hong Kong, with four times as much money. So I decided to take the plane to Hong Kong. Well, I take the three stops to Hong Kong. I saw you did the same three stops. 

[00:35:11] John: Stops, I know. Three stops. They were what was called direct flights, but they were certainly not non-stop flights.

[00:35:19] Colin: So your early impressions of Hong Kong when you were here, did you enjoy it?

[00:35:22] John: Yes, I think I've had a love affair with Hong Kong since the day I arrived. I mean, I still think it's a wonderful place.

And it's been so good to you and I. And we've seen so much. And we've been through so much. It's not been, of course, totally without bumps on the road. But it is remarkably wonderful place where everything is so immediate. Having just come back from London, which I enjoy London, but everything is just So slow to move around. Hong Kong's fantastic public transport system and my great joy, of course the country parks of Hong Kong which I spend a lot of time hiking in. They're just so immediate and so available to everyone and that I just find to be an amazing thing. Getting involved in Hong Kong, it's been a real eye opener to me and I haven't lived in this sort of home club office bubble.

I mean, I've got out there and seen the problems, and I hope that I've made some difference in areas.

[00:36:32] Colin: Well, I know you have from direct experience. Now, Wilkinson Grist, very eminent law firm. You went from Johnson Stokes to Wilkinson Grist, there you have worked all your career until right now, even.

[00:36:44] John: I've still got...

[00:36:45] Colin: still got an office.

[00:36:46] John: An office, we're moving offices shortly. And I will be hot desking, which I'm not quite sure what a hot desking is going to look like, but...

[00:36:55] Colin: I tell you what, you walk in, they may tell you, you sit there. 

[00:36:57] John: Well yes, And that's absolutely fine. I need somewhere to escape from, my wife says, anyway, I need sort of some office discipline. And I've grown old with so many of my colleagues. And so they are not just my colleagues, they're my friends.

And so, I like that. And Wilkinson Grist has been a wonderful firm for me. Because of their very old reputation, they're 140 years old, 141 years old now, they've got some really excellent clients and I've had a lot of fun and the firm have been very good to me. I hope I've been good to them too.

And so it's been a good ride for me. And over the years the firm was approached, as I'm sure yours was too by international law firms and we didn't go down that road. And we're actually rather glad to be an independent law firm. And we get instructions from so many different people around the world.

it's Been a, very good experience for me. And they've allowed me, of course to do my public service.

[00:38:06] Colin: Now tell me about your public service has been, I describe you as a doyen of public service. I've looked at what you've done and starting off your St. James's settlement, you sort of pick something which is excellent then move on to mentally handicapped, it's just incredible.

Now, what brought you into that? I mean, you do more than most people would ever even think of. I mean, I've done a lot myself. I don't get anywhere close to what you've done. How do you do that? How do you manage to drag all those balls up in the air?

[00:38:35] John: Well I've got a very good wife. I've had a very good firm that have allowed me to do it. And I've also got the ability or did in the past not to sleep too much.

So I was able to to keep all these all these things going. Why did I get involved? My family, particularly my mother, always felt that we were very fortunate and we should get involved and I've taken that ball and run with it and it started very soon after I arrived in Hong Kong in, in Christmas time 1978.

The church I was attending, they had a Christmas party for mentally handicapped kids from Poland Cook. And that really was I started getting involved with at that time it was called the Hong Kong Association for the Mentally Handicapped. It changed its name to Hong Chi. I got on the board of that and became a chairman at a very young age and was a chairman for 17 years.

And I was on the board for 25. And it's a huge organization. Hong Chi will be one and a half billion dollar turnover organization. More than. 2,000 staff look after thousands of people, mentally handicapped people and their families. And so it was a huge organization and I met so many interesting people through that and a thoroughly enjoyable experience.

[00:39:55] Colin: Well, that's the beauty of having a small law firm like myself and Mel. I mean, I was there looking after the mission for migrant workers and and then we were always giving me time when I was a young lawyer to start doing this sort of pro bono work and St James settlement and...

[00:40:11] John: Yeah, I still sit on that board. I mean, in all breaches of corporate governance, I've been sitting on that board for 43 years. But it is a fantastic board and the chairman, Sir David Lee, he's been a chairman for more than 50 years, but it's an excellent organization. And now, it would also have a turnover of 1.3 billion dollars, 2,000 staff, et cetera, looking after...

[00:40:35] Colin: For welfare, drug addicts, 

[00:40:37] John: Well everything, from young babies all the way through to the elderly. And so it's a multi welfare organisation, headquartered round the corner here in Wanchai, but of course got huge numbers of different branches throughout

[00:40:53] Colin: Because I remember very early on when I became involved, it was Jackie Pullinger. Who was very much into helping out with people and they introduced me to St James Settlement. It was very small in the early days, until it grew up helping out with disadvantaged people, especially triad addicts who were trying to change their lifestyles as well. And at the same time, not only did you do all the help for all these wonderful charities, you also did a lot of legal stuff for the Equal Opportunities Commission, Law Reform Commission, and you were heavily involved with all of that. Did you enjoy doing that? 

[00:41:24] John: I'd have to say I enjoyed the Law Reform Commission more than I did the Equal Opportunities Commission. The Equal Opportunity Commission was at that time a very political organization. And in the seven years I sat on the board, I think I served under four or five different chairpersons.

So it was a bit of a political hot potato, but it's fascinating. I do like policy, I think it's important, sometimes, doing the work is very important. But, policy today makes a big deal of difference for tomorrow. And so, seeing policy evolve was of interest. I think Equal Opportunities Commission is most likely an easier body to be on now than it was in my day. But yes, I did, as well as in the Law Reform Committee, I sat on a subcommittee, the Law Reform Subcommittee on Charities. And it was chaired by the Honourable Bernard Chan, who's a fairly good man, and he was, of course, eventually convenor of Exco Carrie Lam. Well, we sat for years and, people like Godfrey Lam sat on this committee.

Now, of course, Mr. Justice Godfrey Lam. I tip him to be a future Chief Justice. He, a very learned fellow. But it got killed at that time, and I'm afraid Jimmy Lai didn't like it, and Apple Daily sort of said that this was going to be the Article 23 of the charitable world, and it's going to be a ministry of religion.

I mean, it was just nonsense. I mean, all we were trying to do was trying to regulate a sector that is not at all regulated at all in a very, I think, soft handed 

[00:43:09] Colin: Well, agree with you entirely. The recommendations were were just sort of fundamental, basic, sort of good corporate governance and common sense. 

[00:43:15] John: And it never did. And it's now years later, and we still have no definition, an up to date definition of charity in Hong Kong. And it's to Hong Kong's disadvantage. So we don't have some form of better regulation for charities in Hong Kong. And certainly a better definition of charity.

So that was a disappointing sight. And it continues to be a disappointing sight of the Law Reform Commission. Is that they produce excellent reports, which since post 97 gather dust. And on shelves, and it's not good for Hong Kong in keeping up its legal infrastructure.

[00:43:57] Colin: The other area which I'm interested in, which I did deal with you a little bit, was your positions of a law society, and in particular with you on the education committees, and you chaired the education committee. And one of the areas, I was one of the examiners, because I used to teach at Hong Kong U. And you are heavily involved in the overseas lawyers qualifying exam and with education and making sure that the right people get qualified in the right way.

And you spend a considerable amount of time chairing that committee, which is never an easy committee to chair.

[00:44:25] John: Enjoyed it. Again, I sat for, oh, I think 15 plus years on it, and eventually was asked that maybe it was time to move on. But yeah, I thoroughly enjoyed it, because I felt very strongly, and I continue to feel strongly, that Hong Kong must be an international legal hub, and that we must have the ability to allow other from other jurisdictions to be able to qualify in our jurisdiction and add to our legal infrastructure.

Over the years people have said to me, oh, you didn't make it hard enough. So I always railed against that and said to him, look, frankly, these people are helping us. The pot gets bigger. It's not getting smaller. And it's good that we have New York qualified lawyers qualifying as Hong Kong solicitors.

And we don't want to be like the doctors who make it so restrictive.

[00:45:17] Colin: And that's why we have a shortage, because now they're beginning to realize, see, they're opening it up to allow doctors who are admitted in UK and proper areas to come, as long as they work in the government hospitals, so they're trying to reform that. 

[00:45:29] John: They are, but they, I think, are an example of who tried very hard to put up the barriers. And I think we created a fair system. And I think, when discussions take place about, well, we've got to have a, chinese language test. And I know I was always against any idea of that and having a paper on probate.

I mean, why was an M&A lawyer having to sit a probate paper? I mean, it was bad enough asking them to sit a conveyancing paper. And frankly, I have no objection that people have to sit a a paper on constitutional arrangements in Hong Kong. I mean, we're Hong Kong lawyers. we should know about that.

So I enjoyed that. And I feel that those people who were properly prepared, particularly by the late Professor Wilkinson, who's sadly no longer with us, that those people that were well prepared for the exams passed.

[00:46:17] Colin: Well, like everybody, I mean, I'm an examiner for universities, I always believe if you work hard, prepare properly, you will defeat the examiners. It's when you try to do it on the hoof, and you don't go to the courses, and you don't prepare properly, then you will not succeed.

That's always been the case, you know. 

[00:46:33] John: Just because you happen to be extremely well qualified from Harvard doesn't mean to say that you can wing the exam. You've got to go to the courses, I agree. 

[00:46:42] Colin: I'm interested to talk a little bit about the Hong Kong Club Foundation. In a few words, could you our listeners will be interested in what that is. Can you sort of summarize it and how it came into play? The history background of it as well, 

[00:46:56] John: Well Hong Kong Club has been in existence for a very long time, but it's never done charity. But when the new building. was transferred back from Hong Kong land to the club. It was one of these build, operate, transfer stories whereby Hong Kong land built it and then they got a share of the office rents and eventually they passed it back to the government.

Similar to what's happening we can see with the tunnels of Hong Kong. And, and there were quite a few of us felt in the Hong Kong club that frankly we're going to get a lot of money from the rents and that we should have, some form of charitable foundation. And so that was a discussion which has carried on for quite some time.

And eventually in 2015, the charitable foundation came into being. I have been its inaugural chairman. We've got nine people on the board. They work very hard from different interest groups in the club, different backgrounds. And it's a super committee. And right from the beginning, we decided three focus areas in Hong Kong. It is the Hong Kong club, so it's only Hong Kong that we look at. And the three areas that we chose were the elderly, disadvantaged youth, and ethnically diverse community. And we were kept very busy.

There's huge demand. And we also It's decided that we would only go for small NGOs. So it's with turnover of less than 10 million, many of them with less than 5 million. And because our grants vary between, 500,000 to a million that they would make an appreciable difference.

And we work very hard with these NGOs to become our partners. And we work on their corporate governance and even some of the members of the Hong Kong Club finish up sitting on their boards as well. And so we're very pleased as to, nine years old and coming up for our 10th anniversary next year.

[00:48:44] Colin: I think you've done a magnificent job and you need to publicize it a lot more so people understand that not only do you just give the money, you make sure that you go and watch them, you see what they're doing and make sure the money is well spent in respect of the, be it mother's care, be it foreign domestic workers. Whatever minority needs help for special teaching needs, use of English language, use of Chinese language, and all these sort of things where people need help, which the government necessarily does not help out with, that you sort of step in and give that really important support.

I think it's great. It's one of the best sort of ways forward, and people don't understand that. Getting it over to the public as to how much you really all do.

[00:49:26] John: Yes, we are a unbelievably privileged group, and it's important that in this political environment that we're seen to be doing the right thing. And frankly, I think we are, and I think we've just started on this journey. Because The demographic of the Hong Kong club is full of old men, average age 67.

The one area that I am working on is bequests because I see this as being an area where people that, I can honestly say to them, look, Hong Kong's been very good to you. You do remember us in your will. And I know that there are people that have told me that they They have, done this that they put us in their will, and we've already received some bequests.

We see that as a major fundraising area for the future. Because not only do we get the money from the club. We have a mechanism from the club that it's up to 10 percent of the surplus after tax, and we also get money from members. And recently we've decided to also take outside money as well from those people that think we're doing a decent job.

 I've got one fellow, he said, well, I just don't have the time to do it. You're out there doing the due diligence. I'll give you a donation. And he's one of our $1 million a year donors, which helps us greatly. 

[00:50:42] Colin: Another organization in which I know you're very passionate about, and I am, and we mentioned it slightly earlier on, is Voice for Prisoners. Mel Boase who was the founding member of our law firm, he's on your committee. Give me a little background on how this all came about.

[00:51:00] John: Yes, it's a good story actually. I have been a Justice of the Peace for over 30 years. And I was a Justice of the Peace when there weren't very many unofficial justices. We would have about two or three visits a year. Now, it's part of the honour system, so... 

[00:51:15] Colin: just to help our listeners. Justicece of the Peace, one of the main duties of the Justice of the Peace is they have to visit prisons. 

[00:51:22] John: Prisons and hospitals. 

[00:51:24] Colin: Prisons, hospitals, but prisons seems to be quite an important one. So you used to go and visit the prisons.

[00:51:31] John: Well, I continue to visit the prisons.

And the wonderful thing about being a J.P. is that you can ask a lot of questions and open doors. There can no door not be opened. And I mean, I always take my duties very very seriously. There are others that may not be quite as inquisitive as I am. But I believe strongly that it is one of those things that we're asked to do.

And so I very much, Asked lots of questions of the CSD, who actually I have a great admiration for. I think, generally speaking, when you meet these people, they are doing a very good job, in difficult circumstances, in some cases. It's maybe a bit more militaristic compared to other regimes abroad, but I think, generally speaking, I think the they do a decent job. 

[00:52:19] Colin: I'll just sort of give you a story from my end. I had a very long battle with a client of mine who was the longest ever extradition battle from the UK to Hong Kong. He spent his time incarcerated in Pentonville, then he was into Brixton Prison and another prison.

When he came back to Hong Kong and he was then put into Stanley, he then told me that he felt that the Hong Kong prison, system was way, way ahead of all the others compared to quality and to care and to understanding and to general conditions. The prisons in the UK were full of drugs and other matters, not in Hong Kong, and it may be the odd incident, but he really said that dealing with the, authority was there, and it was a little bit military, but it was far, far better than anything else he had suffered. 

[00:53:05] John: Yeah, well, it is interesting, because, as I said, I've just come back from London. This is an aside, really. And the situation is that they've got so many people in prison there, they're going to let people out because they just have got no more room for people. That's a real question mark about that.

But when I was there, the fellow that runs Timson's has just been ennobled Lord Timson now, and he's a guy that employs a lot of ex-prisoners sits on lots of committees, knows about this, and has now been made the Minister for Prisoners. I think that's the next thing to Keir Starmer appointment, actually.

Get people who actually understand the system to be the minister. So I thought that was a very good appointment. 

Coming back, we are moving back to Hong Kong. Also this would be early 2010s. I was in Shake Pick Prison, which is in Lantau Island, a maximum security prison.

And I couldn't believe the, the number of Africans and in this secure facility. And so I asked for the figures from the CSD officers and found out there was more than 20 percent of the prison population were from overseas. And I thought this, particularly Africans, and I thought this is dreadful, and they were all in there for drugs.

And I thought, this is ridiculous. This is costing. a huge amount of money in Hong Kong to have these people and we're looking after them for what 10 15 years possibly. And particularly If they've carried quite a bit of drugs into Hong Kong. And I thought it's terrible for them and terrible for their families and not good for Hong Kong so I thought we've got to find a way of of advertising abroad to stop these drugs drug mills from coming to Hong Kong.

And so I spoke to my judge friends and they said I should speak to the then DPP Kevin Zervos. And I said, look, I think we've got to get this message out. Oh, no, no, no, they know, they know. I said, I'm not sure that they know that if they get caught in Hong Kong that they're going to go in for such long sentences.

Oh, no, they know. So I I spoke to a few others and didn't make much progress and I've always got different projects, so it rather came off my radar. But then I was reading the SCMP and I read an article about this Catholic priest called Father John Witherspoon who had started a letter writing campaign amongst prisoners to write back to their home.

And to basically say, I made a dreadful mistake by bringing drugs to Hong Kong, don't bring them. I thought, well, this is a man I've got to meet and see what we can do together. And so we met and I think to make a long story short we started up an NGO. And we called it Voice for Prisoners. And it's not just trying to stop drug mules from coming to Hong Kong, that's our principal mission.

And we're also very keen on education courses for prisoners, because despite the huge resources available in Hong Kong, there's still prisoners who wanted an Open University Degree. It's no longer called the Open University. It's the Metropolitan University Degree. Or maybe a more straightforward course from the Chinese University, Extramural Division.

And we have been raising quite a bit of money. We got a grant a couple of years ago from Operation Santa Claus. 800,000 for these education courses and we continue to raise money in that area. We're also very involved in prison visits. We have more than 75 people who visit prisoners and we're also very interested in criminal justice as well, and we're working with The Hong Kong University, Professor Simon Young, on looking into sentencing for drug mules.

[00:56:46] Colin: Let me give our listeners some context here. What's happening here in Hong Kong, compared to other jurisdictions, is that when you are caught, and there's cocaine, there's whatever is smuggled into Hong Kong via the airport, via other means, and you get caught.

The sentencing for all of these depend upon Fundamentally, the amount, the weight, and how much, cocaine you have. Because Hong Kong want to send out a message not to come to Hong Kong to do this, the sentencing here in Hong Kong, if you're over a good percentage of weight, could be 30 years in prison.

to 40 years, 25 years, 30 years. The sentencing is huge. That's after you do get a discount if you plead guilty. But the problem is this, is that these type of sentences, which we're having in Hong Kong, compared to what you would get, let's say, in UK, Australia, elsewhere. What you would get, let's say, for the weight of 30 years, you would probably get 15, 12, or even less in these other jurisdictions.

And the mules who are coming in here, they are told they're given their families. They're from very basic, very simple, and they come in and they say they get rewarded a little bit, but it's not very, very much. And they sometimes they don't even know the people who are sending them. So behind them, they've got these massive organizations who are really making a lot, using these people and a lot of people get through, and the drug trade is huge and massive around the Asia Pacific area.

So, what they're facing is, they arrive, they get caught red handed, and then, they get the legal advice a little bit later on, but the sentencing is very, very harsh, and it's been a few cases trying to sort of change it, and Father Wetherspoon was trying to see whether these people could help, and if you can get help and do a controlled delivery, you may get a further deduction of your sentences.

But overall, you're having people in these prisons for a very, very long period of time. Sometimes more than you would get for a domestic murder, or in a manslaughter as well, or even gun offenses. So it is very tragic, and a lot of them just don't know what's happening.

[00:58:54] John: I totally agree. We can't be seen to be going soft. And you've got to look at the historical consequences is that in the past these people would have been sentenced to death and in Singapore they are. And so in Hong Kong, I mean, the maximum sentences for these drug mules is life imprisonment, and, if you look at the colonial administration the deal that they did was that, life meant life, and so that's the background, and I sense that if tomorrow we had a referendum in Hong Kong is that Hong Kong people would vote in favor of bringing back the death penalty. And I hope that we never have that referendum. I hope we continue not to have it. But if you do look around us I mean, Singapore carries on with the death penalty. And of course China certainly has the death penalty for drug trafficking.

So it is serious there is no doubt, and we don't want to have have these drug mules coming to Hong Kong. So what do we do? Well, there's a wonderful fund that the government have called the Beat Drugs Fund. It's extremely large. It's about over 4 billion dollars is in the Beat Drugs Fund. And because now we're an NGO and we've got charitable status, we apply to the Beat Drugs Fund.

And we do get funding from them to send a message abroad. And we have talented people who are able in different languages and we have messages that we send out, not only in English, but in portuguese Brazilian, because there's a lot of people coming from that part of the world, and also, South America, there are a lot of people coming, so a message is sent out also in Spanish.

So we've got talented people that draft all these messages that go on Facebook and they're pushed and and to get the message out, don't come to Hong Kong with drugs because if you get caught, you will go down. Of course, during COVID, nobody came, so you can't say it's a success story during COVID because the airport was effectively closed down.

Now that we've reopened, we are seeing drug traffickers coming back so far this year. I think there are 55 of them have been caught coming from various places but there are different trends as well sometimes the Hong Kongers who are sent abroad to collect the Drugs and then brought back to Hong Kong as well.

And so, you know trends change, but we still have people from diverse backgrounds coming to Hong Kong. Many of them tricked to come to Hong Kong as well. And come in with drugs. From a business point of view, I'm quite surprised that the drug trafficking organizations bother with these individuals because I would have thought that it would be easier just to send it in cargo.

I mean, they're very clever as to how they hide the drugs in different Machinery or here we have advertising here, Evian Water. I mean, they could have part of the drugs in Evian Water. They've got lots of different ways, and I would have thought they'd be able to bring in a lot more drugs in those means, rather than having people smuggling in drugs in their suitcases or pellets.

[01:01:58] Colin: Which is very dangerous. Because they can die, 

[01:02:02] John: They could easily die if one of those pellets, escapes. But so it is continuing the work to try to stop drug mills from coming to Hong Kong. 

[01:02:13] Colin: It's great to see that, for our listeners, I do help out. I am involved. We give as much assistance as we can, and what we're trying to do for everyone is find the right case to get it into the court of final appeal, to really have a look at the law on the way in which they go about these six tests or the way tariffs are put forward. It's not that satisfactory. It is very, very difficult, and it's quite difficult to get these type of cases of a great public importance into this Court of Final Appeal to try to get a indicative test as to what really is the best way to deal with how you commute, how you calculate and deal with these matters.

[01:02:52] John: I come back to a case that happened on Saturday. And this is a case involving 22 year old Hong Kong. He had rented a private flat in Yuen Long, and he was caught and taken back to the flat by the police and they found 32kg of cocaine. He had been set up by the drug organisation behind it. I don't know if he knows who that was. But 32kg of cocaine is a huge amount of cocaine.

Well done the police for bringing 32kg off the market for Hong Kong. But my problem is that they've caught this young man, but who set him up? Where are the big network behind him? Who are these people who are doing this? Because, I mean, he's succumbed, they'll give him some money, not very much and he will go to jail for a very substantial amount of time.

But what about Mr. Big? Miss Big? Where are they? And that's where I would like the police to to concentrate their efforts. I mean, they have got unbelievable resources in Hong Kong. I know that these organizations are very smart. I accept that. But, our police are very smart too.

And they've also got a lot of resources available to them. And they've also got the law behind them as well. And, I would like to see more of the real gangs Getting into the courts and being sentenced, because that's the difference. The drug mule goes down for 20 years, and Mr. Big may only go down for maybe just a few more years than that, and that's, the disproportionality between the two is, is quite, quite wrong. 

[01:04:33] Colin: I agree entirely. We've spoken a lot about your contributions to Hong Kong society. We know that Hong Kong has gone through some difficult times over the past years with the 2019 unrest, there are elephants in every room now. What are your reflections on this and your advice to maybe our citizens and younger residents moving forward?

How would you see that? It's a difficult question, but I'd like to hear what you have to say. 

[01:04:57] John: Yes, I mean, it is difficult. I mean, we are, both of us very, very pro Hong Kong. There is no doubt that Hong Kong has changed, and some of it not to the good. But we were here in 2019 where every weekend Hong Kong was being absolutely vandalized. There was a state of anarchy going on and the wonderful Mass Transit Railway, for example, was being subject to terrible things that happened at that point.

So, something had to give. Okay, we finished up with national security legislation, but I much prefer national security legislation than China sending the tanks in. Yes, I mean, it's a source of disappointment to me that we haven't got more democracy in Hong Kong, but that is the political reality. What I do want is legislative councillors to work hard for Hong Kong.

And we have got a huge problem here like London and New York and many other places of a disproportionate amount of money at the top, but it's not leaking down to the bottom when we have over a million people below the poverty line in Hong Kong, which is just makes me feel extremely uncomfortable.

So yes, it's changed, but I feel after being here for such a long time, is that we've seen bad times. Hong Kong will see good times again. I still think it's a wonderful place. It's a place of opportunity. And I would say to these people, young people, hang in. I feel that there are good days coming, and we're certainly in a much better and peaceful position now than we were in the autumn of 2019.

[01:06:38] Colin: And finally, Hong Kong has been your home for the past 45 years, mine for slightly less. You're here with your wife, Kate. You plan to stay? This is your home? 

[01:06:49] John: This is our home, now, like you, have grandchildren. Grandchildren in London and grandchildren in Australia. So we'll certainly travel more to see them in the years to come. But I still consider Hong Kong to be my base. I'm still a Hong Konger and I'm proud of it and I will continue to defend it.

And it's been a great place for you and for me. and I hope, for those that are our successors in our firm, I hope it continues to be a good place for them too.

[01:07:18] Colin: John, it's been fascinating talking to you and hearing your wonderful reflections and life spent in this great city. Thank you so much for joining us on Law More.

[01:07:27] John: Thank you very much, Colin.