"[I]t may be still possible to say that, although the local authority have kept within the four corners of the matters which they ought to consider, they have nevertheless come to a conclusion so unreasonable that no reasonable authority could ever have come to it. In such a case, again, I think the court can interfere”, Associated Provincial Picture Houses Ltd. v Wednesbury Corporation [1948]1 KB 223, 233
Professional life in Hong Kong is heavily regulated. Rightly so, the increased awareness of clients on their rights against professionals presents new challenge to doctors, accountants, engineers, insurance agents alike.
Disciplinary proceedings against professionals are often extremely distressing with one’s livelihood and reputation at stake. They deserve rigorous and principled advocacy and defence to ensure one’s fundamental human right to a fair hearing is protected.
For the first time in recent 14 years, an insurance agent, represented by the Speaker of this CPD Course as counsel, has successfully applied to quash the decisions of the relevant disciplinary boards below in a judicial review case of Wei Linghui v Hong Kong Federation of Insurers Insurance Agents Registration Board [2019] 4 HKLRD 387, on both:
- the substantive ground that decisions below were unreasonable in the public law sense; and
- the procedural ground that there was procedural impropriety of failing to give adequate reasons.
This case sheds new light on disciplinary proceedings in the insurance industry in which over 70,000 insurance agents are subject to the regulation of relevant disciplinary boards and over 1,000 complaint cases are processed annually.
The Speaker will offer his analysis of the judgment and experience in handling the above case and similar cases.
