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Judges’ Understanding of Protests and the Cultural Underpinnings of Legal Repression

Examining Hong Kong Court Verdicts

Bibliographic Data

ID12282913
AuthorsFrancis Lee (0000-0003-1587-4950, Chinese University of Hong Kong, corresponding author)
Year2022
Volume32
Issue3
Pages464-484
Publication date2022-08-29
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSocial & Legal Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0964-6639 • E-ISSN: 1461-7390
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/09646639221122443
OpenAlexW4293425831
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited36

Given a concern with legal repression of protests and based on the premise that judges inevitably draw upon common sense ideas in judicial decision-making, this article examines how understandings of protests, protesters and protest policing are embedded in verdicts in protest-related court cases. A textual analysis was conducted on judgements in 21 cases about rioting and incitement associated with three prominent protest events in Hong Kong between 2014 and 2019. The analysis shows that the assumptions of risk aversion and perceptiveness were applied to the protesters and onlookers, whereas the assumption of professionalism was applied to the police. How police actions might influence protesters was ignored. The emergence of protest violence was typically understood in terms of emotional contagion within the crowd. Overall, such ideas and assumptions substantially constrain protests, though they sometimes benefitted the defendants in individual cases. The findings illustrate the cultural underpinnings of legal repression of protests

Criminology · Epistemology · Incitement · Political science · Premise · Psychological repression · Sociology · China's Socioeconomic Reforms and Governance · Hong Kong and Taiwan Politics · Law · Psychology · Social Psychology · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies

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Unique citing works4
Citations per year2
Citation span2024 - 2026 (3)
Citation velocitycurrent
Highly citedNo
Citation typesNeutral: 4
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