李國能

繁體中文

李國能（Andrew Li Kwok-nang，1948–　）1948年12月12日在香港出生，祖籍廣東鶴山，係香港名門李佩材家族後人，與李福逑為父子。他先後就讀聖保羅男女中學附屬小學及聖保羅男女中學，中三後赴英國打比郡普頓學校，1967年入讀劍橋大學，取得文學碩士及法學碩士。1970年他在英國取得大律師資格，1973年起在香港執業，1982年任地方法院暫委法官，1986年任稅務上訴委員會副主席，1988年獲委任御用大律師，1989年出任大學及理工學院資助委員會主席，1991年任暫委高等法院大法官，1992至1996年任行政局議員。1997年7月1日他獲首任行政長官董建華委任為香港終審法院首任首席法官，任內處理多宗涉及《基本法》嘅憲制案件，其中1999年吳嘉玲案嘅判決引發首次人大釋法，成為「一國兩制」下司法與憲制關係嘅標誌性案例。2008年他獲頒大紫荊勳章；2009年9月宣布提早退休，2010年8月31日卸任，任期十三年，由馬道立接任，並開展退休前休假。退休後他仍就司法獨立與釋法問題發聲，2011年應邀出任北京大學法學院客座教授；2017年他首度評論人大就宣誓風波釋法，認為在法院判決前釋法會對公眾就司法獨立嘅觀感帶來負面影響，並主張人大應在非常例外情況下方行使解釋權。

English

Andrew Li Kwok-nang (born 12 December 1948) was born in Hong Kong into the prominent Li Pei-tsai family, the son of Li Fook-kau. Educated at St Paul's Co-educational College and its primary school, he went on to Repton School in Derbyshire and read at Cambridge, taking master's degrees in arts and law. Called to the English bar in 1970, he practised in Hong Kong from 1973, served as a deputy district judge in 1982 and vice-chairman of the Board of Review in 1986, took silk in 1988, chaired the University and Polytechnic Grants Committee from 1989, acted as a High Court judge in 1991 and sat on the Executive Council from 1992 to 1996. On 1 July 1997 Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa appointed him the first Chief Justice of the Court of Final Appeal, a post in which he handled some of the first constitutional cases under the Basic Law — notably the 1999 Ng Ka-ling judgment on the right of abode, which triggered the first interpretation of the Basic Law by the NPC Standing Committee and became a landmark of the judicial-constitutional relationship under 'one country, two systems'. Awarded the Grand Bauhinia Medal in 2008, he announced early retirement in September 2009 and stepped down on 31 August 2010 after thirteen years, succeeded by Geoffrey Ma. He has continued to speak on judicial independence and interpretation, becoming a visiting professor at Peking University Law School in 2011 and, in 2017, warning that interpreting the Basic Law before a court ruling damages public perceptions of judicial independence, while accepting that the NPCSC's power of interpretation is part of the system and should be used only in exceptional circumstances.