13 September 2023
On 4 September 2023, the Court of Final Appeal of Hong Kong rejected the request for leave to appeal a sentence of imprisonment for four people who had marched, together with others, during a Labour Day protest in May 2020.
The defendants were convicted for violating COVID-19 rules about the limit of people for each gathering. Last October, the High Court had already rejected a request for appeal and had highlighted that even if the four maintained a distance of 1.5 meters as mandated by the rules, they nonetheless were really close to each other and shared a common purpose.
The respect of the distance rule was called into question by the defense lawyer, but was dismissed by the Final Court of Appeal.
