Hong Kong has enacted new legislation allowing national security procedures to be applied to older cases, even if the alleged offenses predated the 2020 national security law. This allows for cases certified by the chief executive to fall under the new framework.

Hong Kong’s new legislation enables certain criminal cases to be retroactively brought under national security procedures even if the alleged offences occurred before the 2020 national security law was enacted. The subsidiary legislation, which introduces a classification mechanism for “other offences endangering national security” under the city’s domestic national security law, was gazetted and came into effect on Tuesday. Under the new law, any case certified by the chief executive will be...