Lau Kam Sing Dickie v. Architects Registration Board Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Inquiry Committee

On 18 August 2026, the Court of Appeal (Kwan VP, Chu VP and Cheung JA) dismissed an application for leave to appeal to the Court of Final Appeal in Lau Kam Sing Dickie v Architects Registration Board Hong Kong SAR Inquiry Committee, CACV 108/2024, [2026] HKCA 1475. Mr Anthony Chan SC, instructed by Liu, Chan and Lam, acted for the successful respondent.

The underlying dispute concerns disciplinary proceedings against the appellant, an architect found by the Inquiry Committee to have committed misconduct and neglect in respect of a building project. The Court of Appeal dismissed his appeal on 9 April 2026. He now seeks leave to appeal to the CFA on a single question: whether the Architects Registration Board is required under the Architects Registration Ordinance (Cap 408) to formulate charges with particulars against an accused, regardless of whether the disciplinary rules so provide.

The Court held that the proposed question was neither engaged nor reasonably arguable, for three reasons.

(1) The point was not raised below. At [73] of its earlier judgment, the Court had merely suggested that the Inquiry Committee should in future identify misconduct or neglect with particulars. The appellant, who was legally represented on the appeal, never took issue with the absence of a formal complaint document. Raising it now was an opportunistic attempt to introduce a new point, breaching the Flywin principle on both the "state of evidence" and "not considered on intermediate appeal" bars (§7).

(2) The question is not reasonably arguable on its merits. Under the disciplinary rules in force when Leung Siu Kwong, Christopher v An Inquiry Committee [1996] 1 HKLR 222 was decided, the Preliminary Committee was required to draft charges and forward them to the Board. That requirement has since been removed from the current Architects Registration Ordinance Procedure for Disciplinary Proceedings. Litton VP's observation that "no formality is required" in respect of the charge remains good law (§§10-11).

(3) The appellant was aware of the case against him. The Complaint Form provided a summary of the Owners' complaints with supporting documents. The appellant, although acting in person before the Inquiry Committee, prepared a response and called witnesses in his defence (§11).

The application was dismissed with costs to the respondent, summarily assessed at $220,000 inclusive of counsel fee (§14).

Why it matters

The absence of a formally drafted charge document is not fatal. The Court of Appeal has confirmed that the current disciplinary regime does not require the Inquiry Committee to formulate charges with particulars, and that the Leung Siu Kwong requirement was tied to the old rules. The better practice, however, remains for the Inquiry Committee to prepare its own complaint document rather than rely solely on a layperson's Complaint Form, as the Court itself suggested at [73] of its earlier judgment. Architects should engage with the substance of the allegations from the outset: failure to raise a procedural objection at the inquiry stage will likely be treated as a waiver.