Tales from No.9 Ice House Street

Foreword

Forword Connoisseurs of film and literature know that sequels are usually inferior products. Think of such Hollywood classics as Psycho and The Magnificent Seven or such pre-modern Chinese masterpieces as The Journey to the West ( Ϲ༝ত ) and Dream of the Red Chamber ( ޴ᅢ ྒ ) and one realizes that those numerous subsequent attempts to best or equal them have tended to fail dismally. The present book, however, is a pleasing exception because it is a continuation by the same author, of a single, unified story only partially recounted in A Seventh Child and the Law. Whereas that first book’s autobiographical narrative concentrates on the author’s parents, family history childhood, and educational experience, the present volume’s first half recalls part of the author’s more than three decades of a distinguished legal career anchored in the office named and numbered in the book’s title, with more reminiscence of his life, family, and a wide circle of friends and acquaintances. Following its predecessor’s format, the second half rehearses twelve cases, ten of which are culled from that career and in which the author as barrister-protagonist provides further compelling evidence of his being a master jurist. Those readers who, because of previous encounter, had demanded learning more of Patrick Yu’s courtroom activities would, I think, find this volume’s content amply rewarding. Rendered in the characteristically concise and economical prose cultivated undoubtedly by years of disciplined submission both written and oral, Yu’s latest account brings to each of the cases enlisting his service the same attention to details, acuity of analysis, and the admirable ability to penetrate directly to viii FOREWORD the heart of an issue or problem. Especially in the chapters in Part Two (e.g., Chapters 4 and 8) already reported in A Seventh Child, the added elaboration allows intimate glimpses of a first-rate legal mind at work: speed in grasping both pertinent evidence and its implication, imagination in entertaining different hypotheses, logic in deducing which may be the right one, and cunning in anticipating adversarial manoeuvres. Much has been made of the fact that our author remains the first barrister of the former Crown Colony able to conduct bilingual crossexamination with complete fluency. Without meaning to rob him of this attested distinction, I would only observe here that linguistic ability alone cannot guarantee success for an attorney even in a society like Hong Kong’s. To prevail in a judicial argument, it requires the exercise of meticulous but discriminating reasoning, whereby the plausible or possible is permitted and enabled, with sufficient warrant, to develop into the probable or the most likely. Moreover, it is the profound respect for the intent and limit of the law, as such ideals have been articulated in traditional jurisprudence of the West, that ensures the law’s apposite application and measures the practitioner’s integrity. Perusal of Yu’s two books has persuaded this reader at least that their author is blessed with an abundance of intellect and virtue. Perhaps not fully detected even by the author himself, this narrative reflects more than one level of irony. There are, of course, moments of sardonic wit and spontaneous mirth, but the entire volume also details formidable ordeals in aspects of his professional and personal life. Appointed briefly at the beginning of his career in 1951 as the first Chinese Crown Counsel of Hong Kong, Yu acquired almost at once the shattering knowledge that the very system of justice defining his vocation would also deny him equal treatment in the fundamental matter of livelihood. That appalling policy did not alter one whit even after more than twenty years, when Yu was offered a judgeship that he, understandably, refused. Despite his initial shock of discovery and, after his assumption of private practice, the growing awareness of defects marring both system and personnel of his profession, Yu never swerved from his commitment to the highest ideals of the law as he had learnt them. The structural inequities and communal prejudices endemic of colonialism, far from paralysing Yu with bitterness or cynicism, has instead spurred him over the years to strengthen his profession by tireless service to the Bar, by helping to establish the Law School of the University of Hong Kong, and by mentoring many younger colleagues. FOREWORD ix On the familial and personal side, there is the heart-rending but restrained account of his eldest daughter’s fatal condition and...