香港特別行政區 對 蘇海金

On 18 September 2026, the Court of Appeal handed down reasons in HKSAR v So Hoi Kam (CACC 149/2025, [2026] HKCA 1632), allowing the applicant's out-of-time application for leave to appeal against sentence and reducing his sentence from 12 years 8 months to 10 years 8 months. Mr Tse Ying-kuen, instructed by the Legal Aid Department, acted for the successful applicant.

The applicant pleaded guilty at the preparatory hearing to two counts of trafficking dangerous drugs, contrary to section 4(1)(a) and (3) of the Dangerous Drugs Ordinance (Cap. 134). The total quantity involved was 668.48 grams of cocaine. On 28 October 2022, Judge Yau Chi-lap at the Court of First Instance sentenced him to 12 years 8 months' imprisonment, applying the pre-Wong Sui Fong guidelines from AG v Rojas and HKSAR v Abdallah Anwar Abbas (§11).

The facts were straightforward. On 8 April 2021, Customs officers intercepted the applicant at an industrial building in Kwai Chung. They found 14.63g of cocaine in his backpack, then used keys found on him to enter a unit he had rented since 16 March 2021, where they recovered a further 653.85g of cocaine. In a cautioned statement, the applicant admitted the cocaine was for his distribution, for which he was promised HK$300,000 (§§4-6).

The applicant filed his out-of-time application on 3 June 2025, less than three months after the Court of Appeal handed down its revised sentencing guidelines in HKSAR v Wong Sui Fong (No 3) [2025] 2 HKLRD 138. The Department of Justice did not oppose the application (§§14-15).

Holding

The Court held that: (1) the applicant's grounds of appeal were substantial and reasonably arguable, warranting extension of time, given the prompt filing after Wong Sui Fong and the non-trivial reduction of around two years (§23); (2) under the Wong Sui Fong guidelines, the starting point for trafficking 668.48g of cocaine fell within the 16-to-20-year bracket for 500-1,500g, yielding a mathematical starting point of 16 years 8 months (§27); (3) the applicant was not merely a courier or custodian but a real trafficker who had rented the unit and stood to receive HK$300,000, justifying an uplift to 17 years 2 months (§§28-29); (4) after a one-third discount for the guilty plea and a further discount for personal use of part of the drugs, the appropriate sentence was 10 years 8 months (§§31-33).

The Court allowed the application for leave to appeal out of time, treated it as the substantive appeal, allowed the appeal, and substituted concurrent sentences of 10 years 8 months on each count (§34).

For practitioners, the case confirms that Wong Sui Fong operates retrospectively to cases already sentenced, and that an out-of-time application filed promptly after Wong Sui Fong, supported by a non-opposing DPP, will usually be granted where the mathematical reduction is non-trivial. The decision also illustrates how the Court treats an applicant who rents premises and admits distribution as a real trafficker rather than a mere courier, attracting an uplift above the pure mathematical starting point.