當我們談及刑事司法時，我們應該考慮到我們所屬的社會，基於特定人類行為所制定的法律，在不同的社會表現中存在差異。然而，當今所有的文明都有一個共同的目標，即保障公民和平共處的權利，使每個人都有安全感、有尊嚴地在社會中生活。

本期節目中，我們邀請到「鄭國鈞博士顧問行」主席兼首席顧問、菲律賓聖母大學客席教授鄭國鈞博士，他將就刑法學進行討論，從各個角度闡釋香港刑事司法系統的相關概念。

主持︰So, as a HKer, we are very proud of the fact that HK is the safest place in the world. However, of course, there are also a lot of crimes in HK, and recently we can see that there's a rise of internet scam in our society. So in your opinion, how do you feel about the effectiveness of the criminal justice in HK?

作為一個香港人，我們對香港是世界上最安全的地方這一事實感到非常自豪，但香港也有很多犯罪行為 ，最近我們可以看到網絡詐騙也在增長，請問你如何評價香港的刑事司法效力？

嘉賓︰Very often than not, people talk about increasing public spending on fighting crime. But if you look at the city, I mean as an academic, I would actually look at crime from a different perspective, from the cultural perspective, in a way that it is somehow functional in the city and in a society.

人們經常談論要增加政府支出來打擊犯罪，但如果你看一下我們的城市 ，作為一個學者，我會從不同的角度來看待犯罪，即從文化的角度來看，這一種社會現象具有一定的「功能性」。

So if you look at it that way, then cities like HK or places like HK which is a collectivist society. The only thing that you probably have to do is to increase the cost of crime or cost of committing crime, which means the moment they realize it costs that much or crime would cost that much, they'll probably be deterred in a way.

如果你這樣看，那麼像香港這樣的一個集體主義社會，我們唯一要做的可能就是增加犯罪的成本，這意味着當他們意識到犯罪的代價是如此高昂的時候，就很可能會被嚇阻。

But look at other cities around the world, let's say cities that are full of individualists, it would be so difficult for us to simply increase the cost of crime for them, because the moment they think they don't agree with the law, they'll just do it. So the thing is, if you look at HK, it's not about the city now, we're talking about the generation.

不過看看世界上其他城市 ，譬如那些充滿個人主義的城市，我們很難簡單地增加犯罪成本，因為一旦他們不認同法律條例時，就會違反法律，所以香港現在的重點不是城市本身，我們談論的是一代一代的人。

The last generation probably would be more like conformists, but for the new generation, I wouldn't say they're conformists. So in a way, we have to sort of educating them, and not increase the public spending because that's probably useless in a way. In that sense, in order to sort of curb crime or sort of making the city safer, education would be so key.

上一代人可能更循規蹈矩，但對於新一代，我不認為他們是循規蹈矩的人。所以在某種程度上，我們必須培養和糾正他們的意識，而不是增加用於打擊犯罪的公共開支，因為這在某種程度上可能是無用的。從這個意義上說，為了遏制犯罪或使城市更加安全，教育將會非常關鍵。

主持︰As you know, in the pandemic, we are facing lots of difficulties. As you said, for many people, they asked for increasing the expenditure on giving out more courtrooms or hiring more judges to ensure that there is no justice delay, but some of the cases back in 2019, for the riot cases, they haven't been brought to court yet. So do you think that we should do something? What can we do more for the criminal justice to make sure it has to be done?

疫情期間，我們面臨很多困難 。正如你所說，許多人要求增加開支以提供更多的法庭或僱用更多法官，確保司法程序不會延誤。不過有些2019年暴力行為的案件 ，至今仍未到法院提堂。你認為我們應該為此做點什麼嗎？我們怎樣可以保證刑事司法公正？

嘉賓︰Well, if you look at other cities around the world or other places around the world, UK actually piloted the first virtual court back in 2021, Singapore, the U.S., and Australia they have similar things as well. But out of all these things, it actually boils down to the same issue: we are short of judges, we're short of people running the criminal justice system.

如果你看看世界上其他地方，英國早在2021年就試行了第一個虛擬法庭，新加坡、美國、澳洲也有類似的措施，所有這些事情其實都可以歸結為同一個問題，那就是我們缺少法官 、缺少管理刑事司法系統的人 。

Let's say, you go to a restaurant and all of a sudden you have so many customers coming in, what are you going to do? Are you going to hire a few more chefs? That's the problem. You can't hire chefs right away, so you still have to take time in order to digest those cases, which means really the best answer would be patience.

比方說你運營一家餐館，突然有很多顧客前來，你要做什麽？ 是要多僱幾位廚師嗎？ 這就是問題所在。你不能馬上僱傭新的廚師，所以你必須花時間來消化這些訂單，也就是說最好的辦法就是要有耐心。

But waiting maybe is not the best way. Because for the judges, we always say that the remunerations, the benefits package, it cannot be compared to the private practice. It's an art about how do we attract more people to be judges.

不過等待也許不是最好的方式，因為對於法官來說，我們總說薪酬待遇或福利待遇不能與私人執業相比，所以如何吸引更多的人成為法官是一門學問。

◆ 點新聞英文節目《EyE on U》，由立法會議員容海恩及梁熙主持，邀請香港社會各界包括政界、商界及專業人士，分享及討論社會熱話。