19/09/2019
HCMP2801/2015 THE UNIVERSITY
25.
OF HONG KONG v. HONG
KONG
COMMERCIAL
BROADCASTING
CO LTD AND ANOTHER
Instead it was submitted that they are affected because their right or
freedom to receive information is hampered by the injunction in question.
The Unknown Person cannot now, without breaching the injunction, pass the
information
in question to them.
consequence of the injunction.
In my
view, that is simply
a general
The injunction does not target the intended
interveners or seek in terms to prevent them specifically from receiving the
relevant information.
wishes
Nor is there any evidence that the Unknown Person
to pass the information
in question
specifically
to the intended
interveners and that he has refrained from doing so because of the existence
of the injunction.
without
the
Accordingly insofar as the intended interveners cannot,
Unknown
Person
breaching
the
injunction,
receive
the
information, they are in no different position from the rest of the world.
I do
not think this is sufficient to bring them within Order 15, rule 6(2)(b).
26. The rule does not permit joinder of a party who is merely interested in a
case because and to the extent that it determines a question of law: Spelling
Goldberg Productions Inc v BPC Publishing Ltd [1981] RPC 280; Building
Authority
v Appeal
Tribunal
(Buildings)
(CACV
19
&
113
of 2012;
15 March 2013) at §14 per Fok JA (as he then was). In Helen
Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd (CACV 43/2001;
Tsang v
11 September 2001), a case
raising questions on the law relating to sexual discrimination, Keith JA
rejected the Equal Opportunities Commission’s application to be joined as a
party, holding that neither limb of Order 15, rule 6(2)(b) had been satisfied.
In the result, the court allowed the Commission to provide the court with the
services of counsel not as counsel for the Commission but as amicus curiae,
though that did not make the Commission a party or intervener.
27.
In Roe v Sheffield City Council [2003] LGR 389; [2003] EWCA
Civ 1,
Sedley LJ noted that it had been pointed out|2] that private law litigation
could from time to time raise issues affecting the public interest, but that the
provision for first-instance joinders made at that time by RSC
Order 15,
rule 6(2)(b) (equivalent to Hong Kong’s RHC Order 15, rule 6(2)(b)) would
not ordinarily admit public interest interventions.
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