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By Greg Torode

HONG KONG, (Reuters) – Hong Kong authorities have been granted the right to make use of national security powers in order to impose harsh colonial-era laws against opposing groups. This has alarming lawyers and activists in Hong Kong.

    Police have launched investigations into acts that took place before the national security law was imposed a year ago, despite assurances by Beijing and Hong Kong that the financial hub’s legislation would not be retroactive.

    The recent probes have unnerved pro-democracy campaigners across the city, leaving some to fear they face prosecution for acts they believed to be legal at the time.

Simon Young is a Professor at the University of Hong Kong law school. He said, “The future is the past.” “We’re starting to see an evolution of national security laws, which allows the authorities to examine older laws and historical events with a fresh perspective.

“We see it gives them confidence and new power, to use laws that may have been overlooked or considered unenforceable.”

    Several groups, including veteran protest organiser Civil Human Rights Front, are under investigation for acts that pre-date the security law, according to statements by senior police and reports in pro-Beijing media.

    Asked about statements from Police Commissioner Raymond Siu that the Front was being investigated over marches that predate the law, a force spokesman told Reuters last month that “police will continue to investigate if any organisation and person have violated the … security law and other Hong Kong regulations”.

Many legal experts and lawyers claim that the case reveals the whole scope of the law, which includes its ability to successfully reboot laws from British colonial times that have an impact on national security.

    Two paragraphs in recent court judgements appear to clear the path for security probes into past actions, they warn.

    One February ruling in the Court of Final Appeal suggested that the national security law’s reference to “acts endangering national security” included violations of older laws.

    And a District Court ruling in April noted that under the security law, the older offence of sedition was now classified as a more serious crime, potentially removing its previous statute of limitations of six months.

“AUTHORITARIAN GOLDMINE”

    Beijing imposed the national security law on Hong Kong last year, seeking to punish what it sees as subversion, secession, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces.

    But fresh police investigations into acts that predate the law’s imposition appear to be triggering sometimes overlooked legislation on crimes such as sedition, a law governing private groups and even legislation against espionage, criminal lawyers say.

    Those powers include the right for national security police to conduct searches and electronic surveillance, such as phone tapping, without going to court or asking a judge for a warrant.

When asked by police about the investigation of older crimes and their impact on the courts rulings, the spokesperson stated that the officers would not discuss specific cases.

According to the spokesperson, “In any operation the police will act according to law and on the basis for actual circumstances.”

    When the law was passed, senior Chinese and Hong Kong officials repeatedly stressed it would not be retroactively applied.

   Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam told the UN Human Rights Council in June 2020 that the law was urgently needed to tackle a “gaping hole” in national security but the presumption of innocence would be maintained and the law would have no retrospective effect.

    Lam also told the UN it would only affect “an extremely small minority” of Hong Kong.

    Zhang Xiaoming, deputy director of the State Council’s Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, said on July 1 last year that “the law is not retroactive”. He stated that security provisions from older laws will be applied to punish “crimes which have been previously committed and endanger national safety”.

    The intensifying crackdown is forcing some prominent groups to disband, including the Civil Human Rights Front. Others are urgently shredding files, and deleting photos and online material, saying they fear even once-innocuous details could be used against them under Hong Kong’s evolving security regime.

    “The recent past is an authoritarian goldmine,” said one private investigator who has been assisting some groups to protect themselves. National security police will build their case by looking both backwards, and forwards.