With litigation still lingering, the listing of the HK$30-billion (US$3.86 billion)Link Real Estate Investment Trust (the Link), the largest of its kind in the world, had to be shelved.

The interests of more than 500,000 subscribers, most of them small investors, some with borrowed money, have been hurt. And the reputation of Hong Kong as an international financial centre is at risk.

This is all because of a small bunch of trouble-making "democratic" legislators who want to show the world that they are in charge of Hong Kong. The most prominent among them is Albert "Taipan" Cheng, who in the past, as a radio talk-show host, was known as "the chief executive of Hong Kong before 10:00 am".

He walked away from the show on the pretext that he was under a political threat, but resurfaced soon after to organize his campaign to run for the Legislative Council election, and was subsequently fired by his boss at the radio station. Now he is among the 25 "democratic" legislators, leading a lacklustre existence. To break out of this doldrum, he has to create some issues.

On November 24, when the listing of the Link was formally announced, Cheng led two other radical legislators, Albert Chan Wai-yip and Leung Kwok-hung, the "Long Hair", to storm the press conference, accusing the government of selling public properties on the cheap. Since this charge was purely fabricated and without any substance, it had no market in the public and quickly died down. The first attack failed.

Three days before the listing, scheduled for December 16, these characters reappeared again. This time they sponsored two elderly persons, both public housing residents on welfare, to file applications to seek judicial review against the listing. They argued that because the Housing Authority (HA) has a legal obligation under the ordinance to secure shopping malls and car parking places for housing estate residents by maintaining control of them, it had acted outside its legal authority by transferring the control to the Link through the asset sale.

Judges of both the Court of First Instance and the Court of Appeal ruled that the HA acted within its legal authority, and that it could fulfil its legal obligation to provide housing and amenities for residents directly or indirectly, including the sale of assets to third parties.

One of the applicants, the elderly man, dropped out of the litigation after the first ruling, and apologized to the public for being misled by the three legislators. But the elderly woman went into hiding after the first ruling, filed the appeal application at the very last minute and refused to appear in court, complaining through an unregistered social worker that the judicial process was unfair to her. She still has not decided whether or not to take the case to the Court of Final Appeal within 28 days as required.

It is now apparent that the opponents are not serious in winning the case. The remaining appellant, the elderly woman, Lo Siu-Lang, did not even bother to appear in court. In fact, especially after two adverse rulings, their case is anything but strong. Their sole purpose is just to block the global listing of the Link by abusing the judicial process with practically no costs.

They first applied for legal aid, but got rejected. Their legal team charged them nominal sums, which was shouldered by Cheng, and they do not have to pay court costs. When worst comes to the worst, like "Long Hair", the penniless elderly lady can just roll out one dollar and walk out, watching hundreds of millions of dollars of other people's money, quite a large part of it public money, going down the drain.

If every time the government puts something up for sale, any busybody or lunatic can just throw in a wild spanner at the last moment and halt it, then not only will Hong Kong be a laughing stock in the international financial community, but the government and the whole of Hong Kong will be in big, big trouble.

Going ahead with the listing regardless of what these radicals do, or plan to do, might be the right thing to do. It would get applause from many quarters, including many public housing residents and the elderly who intend to divest their savings from near nil interest to a safe 6 per cent return by subscribing to Link shares.

Some people have started organizing protests, targeting the two Alberts and "Long Hair", who are veteran agitators and organizers of protests. Many of my friends told me they want to join. In the radio phone-in programmes, Cheng was put on the defensive and lost his temper on the air, to the amusement of the audience.

Some people even suggest the government sue these people for damages. Emotionally I would love to see it happen, but rationally I do not think this is a good idea. The government should keep its cool at all times, and should never appear to be vindictive. After all, this is a good object lesson to those who voted for these legislators in September, and many have since publicly voiced their regret. The people will go after these public enemies.

(China Daily HK Edition December 24, 2004)