Law dean on his move to Hong Kong

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Hong Kong - In the photograph accompanying his message as Law Dean on the Hong Kong University (HKU) website, Professor Michael Hor looks a veritable Hong Konger with his stylish rimmed glasses, bright blue shirt and deep-red bow tie.

In person, the 53-year-old remains as "Singaporean" as ever in a safari-style short- sleeved shirt and matching khaki pants.

It has been a month since he took up his new post here. How has he been settling in?

"Oh, quite well," he says cheerily. "The faculty is supportive. The job is quite different from what I was doing in Singapore, where I was just a rank-and-file academic."

Not quite. The Ipoh-born Singapore permanent resident served in Singapore's legal service in the 1980s before spending 25 years at the National University of Singapore (NUS). There, besides focusing on criminal law, he was also known for his outspokenness on controversial topics, from the need to reform the Penal Code to criminal detention without trial.

In 2009, he was one of two candidates shortlisted to succeed then law dean Tan Cheng Han. The top job eventually went to Australian Simon Chesterman in 2011.

So when Prof Hor's appointment to HKU was announced last year, it naturally invited questions. After all, HKU's law faculty is top in Asia, two spots ahead of NUS' in the QS World University Rankings. Why was Prof Hor deemed not good enough for Singapore?

His answer is a diplomatic "I don't know".

But he notes there is "certainly a perception that after a certain level, only people with the right kind of politics will make it".

Such a perception, whether right or wrong, is widespread and needs to be corrected, he says.

On the flip side, Prof Hor himself faces some scepticism from the wider Hong Kong society. Some wonder if the academic from politically more conservative Singapore will speak out for the cause of constitutional reform as his predecessor Johannes Chan did.

The city is undergoing its biggest political turmoil since 1997 and is deeply split on the issue. One of Prof Hor's colleagues, Associate Professor Benny Tai, is spearheading a controversial civil disobedience campaign to lobby

for "genuine" democracy.

Prof Hor is clear that he will not be as much of an activist as Prof Chan but does not rule out the possibility that he may take part in the movement if it does materialise. History, he muses, has vindicated the breach of law in "exceptional circumstances" such as in apartheid South Africa and colonial India.

"So the question now is whether the circumstances in Hong Kong justify such actions. Some people think so... and I can see where they are coming from," he says.

Prof Hor's vision for HKU's law faculty includes deepening relations with China's law schools while also establishing ties with those in countries such as India and Indonesia.

Noting that "NUS will never be as strong in North-east Asia, and the same for HKU in South-east Asia", he says the rivals should look at collaborating instead.

On whether he has discussed such plans with his former colleagues, he says with a laugh: "No, but it'd be easy. I know them so well!"


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