A newly released book sheds light on the complex and often troubling history of justice during Hong Kong’s colonial era, particularly in relation to the use of the death penalty.
In Penalties of Empire: Capital Trials in Colonial Hong Kong (2025), historian Christopher Munn examines how the British legal system operated in the city from the early 20th century, revealing a legal landscape marked by harsh sentences, cultural misunderstandings, and judicial inconsistencies.
Munn recounts a symbolic episode from November 1904, when the Supreme Court of Hong Kong convened what was described as a “maiden sessions” — a term used when no criminal cases are tried during a session. In keeping with English legal tradition, Chief Justice Sir Henry Berkeley was presented with a pair of white gloves by the court registrar, representing the “spotless innocence” of the population that month.
Berkeley remarked on the peculiarity of such an event occurring in a city like Hong Kong, which he characterized as having a large, transient criminal element. He credited the absence of crime to the practice of deporting offenders across the border to China — a policy that, while expedient, raises modern questions about justice and due process.
Though that month’s court session was celebrated, Munn notes that such peaceful interludes were rare. The 1904 session was likely the eighth of its kind in Hong Kong’s legal history, with only seven more to follow before the tradition ended in 1960. Far more common, Munn argues, were the black caps worn by judges as they handed down capital sentences — a stark contrast to the symbolic white gloves.
Munn’s research uncovers a troubling pattern: amid linguistic barriers, racial bias, and a colonial legal framework ill-suited to Hong Kong’s multicultural population, some individuals may have been wrongfully executed. While not all were completely innocent, the book suggests that several were likely not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
The work invites readers to reflect on a justice system riddled with ambiguity — what the British novelist E.M. Forster might have called “muddle” — and questions whether all who faced the gallows in colonial Hong Kong truly received fair trials.
