Media

Appointment of new Heads of Department

05 Aug 2005

 

The Faculty is pleased to announce the appointment of its two new Heads of Department as from 1 July 2005. Mr. Michael Jackson is appointed as the Head of the Department of Law, while Mr. Wilson W. S. Chow has taken up the headship of the Department of Professional Legal Education ("PLE"). They have respectively succeeded Professor Roda Mushkat who had served as Head of the Department of Law for a term of three years, and Professor Michael Wilkinson, who had been Head of the Department of PLE for nine years.

Mr. Michael Jackson is qualified as a solicitor in New Zealand. He came to Hong Kong to join the Faculty in 1984. In the past 21 years, Mr. Jackson had, apart from teaching duties, taken up various administrative duties in the Department of Law including that as the Admission Tutor. His main area of interest is in criminal law and procedure.

Mr. Wilson Chow is a graduate of the Faculty. Shortly after being admitted as a solicitor in 1995, he joined the Faculty and became the first full-time local teacher in the Department of PLE. His main areas of interest are in conveyancing, probate and tax law. He had served as one of the Associate Deans of the Faculty from July 2002 to June 2005, and was in charge of the Postgraduate Studies in the Faculty.

Professor Mushkat will leave Hong Kong to take up a chair professorship with Brunel University in the UK but she will maintain a close relationship with the Faculty and serve as an Honorary Professor of the Faculty. Professor Wilkinson will remain in the Department of PLE and will be in charge of the running of the new part-time PCLL to commence in 2005-06.

Professor Yash Ghai elected as a Fellow of the British Academy

The Faculty is very pleased to announce that Sir Y K Pao Chair in Public Law, Professor Yash Ghai has just been elected as a Fellow of the British Academy at its Annual General Meeting held in July 2005. The fellowship is the highest honour that the Academy can confer for distinction in research. We understand that this is the first time a Hong Kong scholar is awarded with this distinction by the Academy.

The British Academy, established by Royal Charter in 1902, is the national academy for the humanities and the social sciences. It is an independent, self-governing fellowship of c. 750 scholars, elected for distinction and achievement in one or more branches of the academic disciplines in the humanities and social sciences.

Professor Yash Ghai, CBE, MA, DCL (Oxon), LLM (Harvard) is a renowned scholar in constitutional law. His interests include both human rights and ethnic conflicts. He has published extensively in this area, as well as on the law in many developing countries, especially in Africa and the Pacific. He has advised many governments and other bodies on constitutional developments. In 2003 Professor Ghai was invited by the Kenya government to review its constitution which experience he had shared with us in his article entitled "A Journey Around Constitutions – Reflecting on Contemporary Constitutions", published in the 35th Anniversary publication of the Faculty (2004). He received the Distinguished Researcher Award from the University of Hong Kong in 2001.

The Faculty would like to extend its warmest congratulations to Professor Ghai on his being conferred such great honour by the British Academy.

Another Success for our students in international competitions

Finally, the Faculty is pleased to announce the outstanding achievement of our students in the International Maritime Arbitration Moot held in Sydney from 7 to 14 July 2005. This comes as another welcome success in a row of achievements which we have made this academic year, including our champion victory in the LAWASIA Moot held in Australia, our second place finish in the ELSA WTO Moot in Geneva, and our semi-finalist finish in the International Client Counseling competition in Hawaii.

The HKU team, comprising of four students: two from the PCLL, one from LLB 2 and one from SJD, successfully prevailed against other strong teams such as the University of Technology, Sydney (last year's champion), Victoria University Melbourne and National University of Singapore and proceeded to the Finals of the Maritime Moot, along with the University of Queensland, University of Indonesia and Queensland University of Technology. Although in the end the championship went to University of Queensland, Ms Vivien Hui of the HKU team (a PCLL student) was awarded the Best Speaker in the Finals (an honour which she shares with another student from Universitas Indonesia). We would like to thank our honourable advisor Mr. Philip Yang (Chairman of the HKIAC) and the shipping lawyers at Ince & Co for meeting with our students and giving constructive feedback. We are also grateful for the donation made to the team by the Eric Au Memorial Fund Scholarship for Mooting.

Our students have once again proved that their high standards of skills and knowledge are among the best of the top law schools in the world. Indeed, the Faculty is committed to provide our students with the world’s best international competitions programme, a distinction that could be measured according to the number of competitions entered, the number of students involved, the training and supervision provided by the Faculty and its supporters, and last but not least the success of our students in these competitions.

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For enquiries, please contact Ms. Rita Wai of the Faculty of Law, at tel: 2859 2952, or email: rwmwai@hku.hk