Ronny Tong Ka-wah SC |
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湯家驊 | |
Member of the Legislative Council | |
In office 1 October 2004 – 30 September 2015 |
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Preceded by | New seat |
Succeeded by | Alvin Yeung |
Constituency | New Territories East |
Personal details | |
Born |
Hong Kong |
28 August 1950
Nationality | Hong Kong |
Political party |
Civic Party (2006–15) Path of Democracy (since 2015) |
Spouse(s) | Daisy Tong Yeung Wai-lan |
Residence | Tai Po, Hong Kong |
Alma mater |
University of Hong Kong (LL.B.) St Edmund Hall, Oxford (B.C.L.) |
Profession | Senior Counsel |
Ronny Tong | |||||||||||||
Traditional Chinese | 湯家驊 | ||||||||||||
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Transcriptions | |
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Standard Mandarin | |
Hanyu Pinyin | Tāng Jiāhuá |
Yue: Cantonese | |
Yale Romanization | Tōng Gā wàh |
Jyutping | Tong1 Gaa1 waa4 |
Ronny Tong Ka-wah, SC (Chinese: 湯家驊; born 28 August 1950 in Hong Kong) is a Hong Kong Senior Counsel and politician. He co-founded the Civic Party and was a member of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong, representing the New Territories East constituency from 2004 until he quit the party and resigned from the legislature on 22 June 2015, following the historic vote on Hong Kong electoral reform a few days earlier. He is currently the convenor of the centrist political group and think tank Path of Democracy.
Tong was born in Hong Kong in 1950. He attended the Queen's College, Hong Kong and studied law at the University of Hong Kong (LLB) and St Edmund Hall, Oxford (BCL). He was called to the Bar by the Middle Temple and received top marks in the Bar Exams. He became Queen's Counsel in 1990 was the chairman of the Hong Kong Bar Association from 1999 to 2001.
Eight days after his election as Bar chairman on 21 January 1999, the Court of Final Appeal ruled that mainland Chinese children born before their parents became Hong Kong permanent residents were entitled to right of abode in the city. In June 1999, the National People’s Congress Standing Committee (NPCSC) made an interpretation of the Basic Law that effectively overruled the city’s top court in the case. Tong opposed the NPCSC's interpretation, warning that a “Damocles sword” was hanging over the head of the Court of Final Appeal as a result of the government’s refusal to rule out requesting Beijing to interpret the law in future cases. He said the failure to make a public promise not to seek further interpretations of the Basic Law from Beijing had damaged public confidence in the rule of law. “Confidence in our legal system and the independence of our judiciary are bound to suffer,” he said in his annual report to barristers.