Sir Ti-liang Yang (1929–2023) was born in Shanghai on 30 June 1929 and studied law at Soochow University and then University College London, being called to the bar at Gray's Inn in 1954. He returned to Hong Kong in 1955 and joined the judiciary in June 1956 as a magistrate, beginning a forty-year career that took him through senior magistrate (1963), acting district judge, district judge (1968), High Court judge (1975), Court of Appeal judge (1981) and Vice-President of the Court of Appeal (1987). In February 1975 he tried Chief Superintendent Peter Godber, the expatriate police chief accused of corruption, and after a six-day trial jailed him for four years in a case that gripped the city. He also chaired the inquiry into the June 1972 rainstorm disasters, the 1976 Leung Wing-sang inquiry and the 1980 MacLennan inquiry, and led the Law Reform Commission's sub-committee on homosexual legislation. In March 1988 he became the first Chinese Chief Justice of Hong Kong, driving reforms to ready the judiciary for the handover — including, in 1995, the first use of Chinese in court proceedings — and stepped down in October 1996. That year he resigned to contest the first Chief Executive election, losing to Tung Chee-hwa; he served on the Executive Council from 1997 to 2002, chaired the Exchange Fund Investment Office (1998–2002) and the ICAC Complaints Committee (1999–2004), was chairman of the University of Hong Kong's council from 1985 to 2001 and its Pro-Chancellor from 1994 to 2001, led the Hong Kong Red Cross from 1998 and hosted the RTHK English-teaching programme 'Yang Ti-liang's Message Box' from 2003. He was knighted and awarded the Grand Bauhinia Medal and Brunei's SPMB. He died in Hong Kong on 24 June 2023, aged 93.
The only ethnic Chinese Chief Justice under British rule, Yang presided over the Godber case and several landmark commissions of inquiry and introduced Chinese-language court proceedings to prepare for the handover; continuing to serve on the Executive Council, the Red Cross and the University of Hong Kong, he left a deep mark on the city's legal and public institutions.
Achievements
- 1975 · Tried Chief Superintendent Peter Godber for corruption and jailed him for four years
- 1988 · Became the first ethnic Chinese Chief Justice of Hong Kong
- 1995 · Introduced the first use of Chinese in court proceedings