Hong Kong lawmakers lose legal battle over altered oaths
HONG KONG — Two newly elected Hong Kong separatist lawmakers who altered their oaths by adding anti-China insults were disqualified from taking office in a court decision Tuesday.
A High Court judge ruled that Sixtus Leung and Yau Wai-ching of the Youngspiration party violated a section of the semiautonomous Chinese city’s mini-constitution, the Basic Law, as well as laws covering oaths taken by officials.
The judge sided with Hong Kong’s leader, Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying, and Justice Secretary Rimsky Yuen, who had filed a legal challenge aimed at preventing the two from taking their seats, arguing that they had effectively declined to take their oaths by distorting them at the swearing-in ceremony last month.