Hong Kong judges and judicial officers set for 2% pay rise following last year’s freeze

Judges and judicial officers have been recommended to receive a 2 per cent salary increase for this financial year, following a pay freeze last year due to the city’s mounting deficit.

The salary increase follows an annual review of the salaries of judges and judicial officers, which refers to magistrates, coroners, court registrars and roles in the Labour Tribunal, the Small Claims Tribunal and the Competition Tribunal.

The review takes into account factors including judges’ workload, private sector pay trends, and the economic situation in Hong Kong.

The Standing Committee on Judicial Salaries and Conditions of Service, which conducts the review, did not observe any “major change in the responsibility and working conditions” of judges and judicial officers, according to a report published on Wednesday.

But it noted that the “heavy criminal caseload was compounded by an increasing number of complex cases” related to the 2019 protests and unrest and national security legislation.

“The Judiciary is required by circumstances to accord priority to these cases, which means that the progress of other cases has inevitably been impacted,” the report stated.

“The Judiciary however expects that the impact will be ameliorated in the coming years,” it added.

The courts were also dealing with a “sustained influx” of judicial review applications relating to non-refoulement claims, referring to cases lodged by asylum seekers in the city.

The current annual review mechanism for judges and judicial officers’ salaries has been in place since 2008.

There were five years in which salaries were not adjusted: 2009 and 2010 during the global financial crisis, 2020 and 2021 amid the Covid-19 pandemic, and last year when the city ran its third consecutive budget deficit.

Barring those five years of no adjustments, this year’s 2 per cent rise is the smallest since the current review mechanism started.

In the past, increases ranged from 2.5 per cent in 2022 to as high as almost 7 per cent in 2014.

In April, the government announced it had recorded a surplus of HK$11.2 billion for the financial year that ended in March, significantly higher than the HK$2.9 billion originally forecast during the budget address in February.

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Hillary Leung is a journalist at Hong Kong Free Press, where she reports on local politics and social issues, and assists with editing. Since joining in late 2021, she has covered the Covid-19 pandemic, political court cases including the 47 democrats national security trial, and challenges faced by minority communities.

Born and raised in Hong Kong, Hillary completed her undergraduate degree in journalism and sociology at the University of Hong Kong. She worked at TIME Magazine in 2019, where she wrote about Asia and overnight US news before turning her focus to the protests that began that summer. At Coconuts Hong Kong, she covered general news and wrote features, including about a Black Lives Matter march that drew controversy amid the local pro-democracy movement and two sisters who were born to a domestic worker and lived undocumented for 30 years in Hong Kong.