Institute for Migrant Rights
Railway line at Cianjur station, c. 1890 · KITLV, CC BY 4.0

Migration Jurisprudence from the South › Hong Kong

ZN v. Secretary for Justice

Court of Final Appeal, Hong Kong · Hong Kong · 2020-02-06 · National court

Citation: FACV 3/2019
Type of case: Constitutional and human rights
Outcome: Decided against the migrant side

Question

Does the Bill of Rights’ ban on forced labour oblige Hong Kong to have a specific offence of human trafficking?

What the court decided

No. Article 4 prohibits slavery, servitude and forced labour but does not require a specific trafficking offence. [Check reasoning.]

In plain language

A Pakistani man said he was made to work for years in Hong Kong without pay. He argued Hong Kong must have a crime of human trafficking. The highest court disagreed.

Dalam bahasa sederhana

Seorang pria Pakistan mengaku dipaksa bekerja bertahun-tahun di Hong Kong tanpa upah. Ia berargumen Hong Kong wajib punya tindak pidana perdagangan orang. Pengadilan tertinggi tidak setuju.

Pertanyaan: Apakah larangan kerja paksa dalam Bill of Rights mewajibkan Hong Kong memiliki tindak pidana perdagangan orang tersendiri?

What happened afterwards

  • 2018: Court of First Instance finds a breach but no duty to legislate. [Check.]
  • 2020-02-06: Appeal dismissed.

Sources

Open this decision in the interactive collection (compare, filter, Indonesian view, downloads).

Cite as: Institute for Migrant Rights (2026), Migration Jurisprudence from the South, version 0.1, https://theimr.org/court-decisions/d/hk-zn-2020/. This page summarizes a court decision for research and advocacy; it is not legal advice.

For researchers

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The coded variables support statistical analysis in law: cross-national comparison, regression and event-history designs, and law and economics questions such as how recruitment fees, wage protection and limits on changing employer affect migrant workers. The data can be downloaded for replication.

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