Deputy District Judge S. H. Lee, Presiding Officer of the Lands Tribunal, in Court
Dates of Trial:
10 to 13 October 2023 &
16 November 2023
Date of Written Closing Submissions:
7 & 8 November 2023
Date of Further Written Submissions:
24 November 2023
Date of Judgment:
14 May 2024
_____________________
J U D G M E N T
_____________________
A. Introduction
1.
This is the third of three trials concerning Mandatory Building Inspection Scheme (
MBIS
) that this Tribunal heard from June to November 2023. All three trials focused, one way or another, on alleged breaches of Code of Conduct for Procurement of Supplies, Goods and Services (
COP
) issued by the Authority pursuant to s.44(1) of Building Management Ordinance
[1]
(
BMO
) (all references to sections below are to those of BMO), their enforcement and/or consequences of their breaches, if any. Questions arose whether they have force of law, and whether their compliance is mandatory.
2.
The 1
st
named respondent i.e. Stanley Wong (
Stanley
) has served as the chairman of the management committee (
MC
) of the applicant i.e. the Incorporated Owners (
IO
) of Grenville House (
GH
) from September 2011 to June 2017. The 2
nd
named respondent i.e. Claudia Canepa Wong (
Claudia
) is Stanley’s wife (they are collectively called
the Couple
).
3.
As shall be seen, on the legal front, Stanley effectively continues in this application his battle to rely on COP to make claims against IO that he started 20 years ago (though now on alleged different factual breaches). His then Lands Tribunal case of LDBM 76/2003 found its way to the Court of Appeal and ended up as
Wong Tak Keung Stanley v Management Committee of The Incorporated Owners of Grenville House
[2004] 2 HKC 194
(17 December 2003) (
GH Case
). He afterwards discontinued the said case.
4.
Ms Carol Wong (
Ms Wong
), counsel for the Couple, submitted on their behalf that this Tribunal should in this application follow and apply
GH Case
today in dealing with IO’s alleged breaches of COP published by the Authority on 17 August 2018
[2]
(
2018 COP
)
[3]
over alleged non-disclosure of MBIS information and documents. Mr Warren Suen (
Mr Suen
), counsel for IO, disagreed and submitted that
GH Case
is no longer good law today.
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