From Legal Pluralism to Dual State: Evolution of the Relationship between the Chinese and Hong Kong Legal Orders

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This work-in-progress argues that the relationship between the Chinese and Hong Kong legal orders has evolved from a form of legal pluralism found in the European Union, to a monist but bifurcated status – a “dual state”, to borrow from Ernst Fraenkel’s theory. Recent events, including China’s imposition of a national security law on Hong Kong and the former’s overhaul of the latter’s election methods, have consolidated the change. The picture that emerges is that Hong Kong’s common law legal order of the liberal rule-of-law tradition has definitively become a dual state that is folded within China’s socialist legal system, which is itself a dual state. The analysis not only reveals the potential and challenges of preserving liberal values in an authoritarian polity, but also enhances our understanding of the theory of the dual state.

This event is organized by the Hong Yen Chang Center for Chinese Legal Studies and co-sponsored by the APEC Study Center (ASC).

About the Speaker:

Cora Chan is an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Hong Kong. Her work on public law has been published in top-tier international journals, including the Law Quarterly Review, Legal Studies, Public Law and International Journal of Constitutional Law. She is on the General Council of the International Society of Public Law, the advisory board of the International Journal of Constitutional Law and the editorial boards of the Hong Kong Law Journal and Asia-Pacific Journal on Human Rights and the Law. She is co-editor, with Fiona de Londras, of China’s National Security: Endangering Hong Kong’s Rule of Law? (Hart, 2020). She was the awardee of the 2012 Society of Legal Scholars Best Paper Prize, the 2012-2013 HKU Research Output Prize, the 2013 Hong Kong Research Grants Council Early Career Award, and the 2017-2018 HKU Outstanding Young Researcher Award. 

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