Dr. Paul Ki Ping Ki v. Next Magazine Publishing Ltd.

1997, No. 263
(Civil)

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF APPEAL

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J U D G M E N T

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Rogers, J.A. (giving the judgment of the Court) :

1. This is an appeal from a decision of Master Kwan on 3rd December 1997 whereby a Receiving Order was made.

2. At the outset, it should be pointed out that this appeal was out of time. The Notice of Appeal was filed on 26th December 1997. Under section 98(2) of the Bankruptcy Ordinance and Order 59 rule 4(1)(b) the time for appealing is 21 days from the making of the Receiving Order.

3. That aside, the Court has nevertheless heard the merits of the appeal and the Appellant, Dr. Paul Ki Ping-ki has two grounds which he has put forward. They are both grounds which this Court is not in a position to entertain.

4. The first ground is that the Petitioners in the bankruptcy proceedings have committed perjury in previous proceedings. The alleged perjury is that they allowed the proceedings to continue for some 3 years with the 1st Defendant misnamed and the 2nd Defendant's name misspelled.

5. The previous proceedings were libel proceedings brought by Dr. Ki against the Petitioners. Those libel proceedings failed. An appeal was lodged to the Court of Appeal but security for costs was ordered to be paid. It was not paid and the appeal therefore lapsed. Dr. Ki attempted on two other occasions to revive that appeal but his attempts were unsuccessful. As a result, the costs for the previous libel proceedings were ordered to be paid. These bankruptcy proceedings are based on the failure to pay the costs in the libel proceedings.

6. At a very late stage, the Defendants in the libel proceedings applied to amend the Judgment and Order in those proceedings to correct the spelling of the name of the 2nd Defendant and to correct the name in respect of the 1st Defendant. That Order was allowed. There was no question of any change of identity.

7. In those circumstances, the alleged perjury, which Dr. Ki has relied upon in this Court, is simply non-existent. There was no perjury and in any event any complaints about the conduct of the libel action would have to be made in those proceedings or any appeal from those proceedings.

8. The same point applies in relation to Dr. Ki's other ground of appeal in this Court which was based on a number of points relating to the trial in the previous proceedings. Those included the complaint that he was forced to use English in those proceedings and that the document which was the basis of the libel was mistranslated. Those complaints, again, are not complaints which can be made in these bankruptcy proceedings but would have to be made in the original libel proceedings or any appeal therefrom.

9. In those circumstances there are no grounds for appeal against the Receiving Order in this case and for that reason, as well as the reason that the appeal was out of time, this appeal would have to be dismissed.