In a Legislative Council meeting Friday, Cheng said those cases were filed by police and then handled by a special task force under the department's prosecutions division.

Meanwhile, she defended her subordinates from criticisms targeting their speed of initiating prosecution procedures against the suspects and said the criticisms were based on wrong information but not objective facts.

Cheng continued that law enforcement agencies won't pass all their cases to the department straight away due to different reasons, like the investigation is not yet finished or officers are still gathering sufficient evidence.

She insisted that the city's judicial independence is protected by the Basic Law and courts can make their rulings free of any interference.

On another note, Judiciary Administrator Esther Leung Yuet-yin said about 83 percent of some 2,100 cases related to the unrest were closed by courts as of late February.

Among 85 national security law cases handled by all courts in the city, 75 percent were closed, Leung added.

She continued that there are only some 10 percent District Court cases related to social unrest left unfinished and expected all cases to be closed by next year.