Zj v. Hs

On 25 August 2026, the Court of Appeal (Kwan VP and Cheung JA) handed down judgment in CACV 926/2026 ZJ v HS, allowing the Mother's appeal against Deputy District Judge Matthew Leung's dismissal of her application under the Domestic and Cohabitation Relationship Violence Ordinance (Cap. 189) for an injunction restraining the Father from molesting the children of the family. Ms June Cheung, instructed by Withers, acted for the successful Petitioner.

The parties married in 2021 and have two children, W (almost 5) and C (almost 3). On 29 June 2026, Master Anny Chak granted interim joint custody with shared care and control: the Father would have the children from Sunday 6 pm to Friday 3 pm, covering the school week and five nights; the Mother from Friday afternoon to Sunday evening. The Mother appealed, with the hearing listed for 4 September 2026. On 2 August 2026 the Father was arrested for indecent assault after reports concerning his conduct toward W, including alleged sexual conduct in early 2023 when W was about 18 months old and again in late 2025, plus slapping incidents in January and February 2026. The Mother applied for a protective injunction under Cap. 189 (§§4-8).

DDJ Leung dismissed the application on several grounds: no urgency because the incidents were old; no recent occurrence; unexplained delay; and that the injunction application was not the proper channel to vary interim care arrangements. He ordered the Mother to pay the Father's costs at $100,000 (§§1, 9).

The Court's holding

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal. It held that: (1) the Judge's exercise of discretion was plainly wrong because the urgency arose from the change in care arrangements under the Master's Order, not from the age of the incidents (§13); (2) the Mother had given a credible explanation for her delay, including pregnancy, emotional vulnerability and a desire to preserve the marriage, and her complaints were supported by contemporaneous photographs and videos which the Father had not denied (§13); (3) this was an exceptional case warranting direct application to the Court of Appeal for leave to appeal, given the imminent hearing on 4 September and the urgency to preserve the prior arrangement (§15); and (4) the orthodox interlocutory injunction approach (per Rogers VP in King Fung Vacuum Ltd v Toto Toys Ltd) had to be modulated by the paramount best-interests consideration under section 7(3) of the Ordinance and the welfare principles in H v N and In re H-W (§20).

The Court set aside the Judge's orders, suspended parts of the Master's Order pending the 4 September hearing, kept the children in the Mother's temporary care, and gave the Father supervised contact with no overnight stays. The Court also made no order as to costs throughout (§24).

For practitioners: when a parent seeks protective injunctive relief following a shift in care arrangements that places the child in the sole care of the alleged abuser, that shift can itself supply the urgency needed. Delay in reporting must be weighed in the family context, and the best-interests paramountcy displaces the conventional interlocutory framework where safeguarding is engaged.