Oratorical leadership of chief justices in post-handover Hong Kong

Abstract This article examines how Hong Kong’s three post-handover chief justices—Andrew Li, Geoffrey Ma, and Andrew Cheung—have responded to constitutional and political challenges through their public speeches, statements, and interviews. It observes that Li adopted a bold and proactive approach that connected Hong Kong’s legal system with the wider common law world, while Ma sought greater engagement with the general public on rule-of-law issues. Cheung’s approach, in contrast, has thus far been more conciliatory and circumspect than that of his predecessors. Despite the differing leadership styles adopted by the three chief justices and the distinct nature of the challenges they have faced, the task for all three has been to find an equilibrium between liberal and authoritarian ideologies that sustains Hong Kong’s common law legal system without compromising Chinese sovereignty, and an element of pragmatism underlies all three leaders’ oratory approaches.