[2025] HKCA 1150, the Court of Appeal allowed the

appeals against conviction of 10 male indigenous New Territories inhabitants – commonly known as “男丁” / "Dings" – due to “

Under the practice known as “To Ding”, the 10 appellant Dings (the Dings) had assigned to the Developer plots of land and applied to the Lands Department (LD)

to build small houses under the Small House Policy, which involves certain constitutional entitlements exclusive to Dings.

The Developer and the Dings were jointly charged with conspiracy to defraud the LD by concealing the “To Ding” arrangement. They were tried and convicted after trial, where they were all represented by one counsel (PW)

on the instructions of one instructing solicitor (JJ). The Dings did not testify individually; all relied on the sole defence that everything said in the applications to LD was true (General Defence).

The appeal was allowed on the basis that the Dings were deprived of a fair trial, in circumstances where “

“have allowed themselves to act for all” 

of the parties charged with conspiracy. Among the matters highlighted in the 92-page judgment was the critical conflict between the Dings on the one hand and the Developer on the other: the Developer put the Dings onto free legal representation and controlled their access to their lawyers, who in turn failed inter alia to consider any defence other than the General Defence which may have assisted the Dings, such as the “very obvious” defence on 

While noting that it was unnecessary to determine the Ding’s other grounds of appeal, the Court of Appeal did not accept the argument that the eligibilty requirements to which the Dings were subject in their small house applications to LD were unconstitutional.

The Court of Appeal left open the wider question of whether the practice of “To Ding” is in itself lawful.

 instructed by, and Beney Wong SADPP, Jennifer Fok SPP and Kelvin Tang SPP of, the Department of Justice appeared for the respondent / HKSAR.

, Maggie Wong SC, Bruce Tse SC, Aidan Tam and Eddie Ng, instructed by Johnny KK Leung & Co, appeared for the 2

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