A Hong Kong court has refused a judicial review mounted by a woman demanding police hand over a search warrant they used to get medical records on a serious eye injury she suffered during an anti-government protest.

Lawyers for the woman, named K after she was granted anonymity for fear of having her details shared online, had accused police of obtaining her medical report “behind her back”, depriving her of the right to privacy.

They argued that K should be entitled to access to the warrant, when she has called the lawfulness of the police seizure into question, and that a failure to show her that order would prevent her from mounting a direct challenge, thereby infringing her right to access to justice as protected by the Basic Law, the city’s mini-constitution.

But the High Court on Tuesday sided with police, finding that agreeing to her demand would have far-reaching implications. Such a general rule, it found, would mean anyone aware they are being investigated could ask to see a warrant, harming the effectiveness of investigations, which depend on confidentiality and covertness.

“A declaration of such free-standing right is ... in my view, not only inadvisable but also unnecessary ... because ... there are established legal mechanisms for the applicant to obtain access,” Mr Justice Godfrey Lam Wan-ho wrote. “It is of significance that the applicant has not pointed to any legal obstruction.”

The judge observed that other alternatives open to K included a judicial review directly challenging the magistrate’s decision to issue the search warrant, or a civil action for an injunction restraining the use of documents seized.

Lam concluded that K did not have a free-standing right to the production of the warrant on demand, and dismissed her application for judicial review, with an order that she pay the police commissioner’s legal costs.

K became an icon of the anti-government movement after she was hit in the eye during intense clashes between protesters and police in Tsim Sha Tsui on August 11.

While she claimed she was “hit by a suspected beanbag round shot by anti-riot police”, the force has urged the public not to jump to conclusions, and there have been suggestions she was struck by a projectile fired by a protester.

Police applied for, and were granted, warrants from the court to access her medical report from Queen Elizabeth Hospital, after they said the woman and her family had not responded to police.

But their lawyers also undertook at a hearing on September 12 to seal the obtained medical records and not use them in court before the resolution of the judicial review.



The present application is expected to be the first in a string of legal challenges in K’s case.

Investigation into the August disturbance is still ongoing.

Among those arrested that night at Park Lane Shopper’s Boulevard, one has been charged with rioting while 16 were accused of taking part in an unlawful assembly.