Sentencing in Hong Kong - Twelfth Edition

Since the publication of the eleventh edition of Sentencing in Hong Kong, some aspects of sentencing law and practice have significantly evolved. Whereas many changes are basically factual and case-specific, others are not and require a proper context. Our mission has always been to analyse, explain and record the effect of sentencing judgments, and indicate the sentencing options available to the courts. After all, sentencing affects not only those directly involved in the criminal justice system but also the wider community, and should be properly understood. 

In the Court of Appeal, new sentencing guidelines were issued in 2025 for unlawful trafficking in cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine hydrochloride (“Ice”). This, in turn, generated a detailed consideration of the circumstances in which previously sentenced offenders could take advantage of the situation, even when their applications for leave to appeal were “out of time.” The solution lay in determining if a case was “still in the system.”

Whereas the Hong Kong National Security Law became operational in 2020, the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance was enacted in 2024. Each has generated a not inconsiderable body of case law affecting sentence in various areas. They include collusion with foreign forces to endanger national security, conspiracy to subvert the constitutional order, dealing with an absconder’s assets and seditious activity. The way in which offenders should be sentenced within the NSL’s tiered sentencing bands has also exercised the courts, and the latest sentences for national security crimes of whatever type have been incorporated into this edition. 

The Court of Appeal has issued some significant statements of sentencing law and practice since 2024. They address concurrent and consecutive sentencing, costs in criminal cases, generalised sentences, life imprisonment, multiple offences and remission. Apart from including these, we have, where we considered it helpful, borrowed from the jurisprudence of other common law jurisdictions. For example, we have referenced English authority on the factors relevant to determining the discount for offenders who assist the authorities, and also on the duration of compensation order payments.

Perhaps inevitably, the chapters on aggravating and mitigating factors have expanded, with readers advising they have always found the latter of particular assistance. Within aggravating factors, new issues addressed include the theft of mobile phones, the danger of copycat crimes associated with the broadcasting of an offence, domestic violence, pickpocketing by a recidivist, and inciting students to engage in an unauthorised assembly. Mitigating factors include a change of penalty and sentencing guidelines, advanced age and serious crime, delay in prosecuting, ignorance of the law and positive good character.