Should remote hearings be extended post the Covid-19 pandemic in Hong Kong and what could be the ramifications for practical legal training?

As a result of the lockdowns and social distancing measures imposed by COVID-19, courts in many common law jurisdictions were required to rapidly accelerate their use of remote court hearings. This article will explore the experiences of courts in Australia, England and Wales and Hong Kong in more broadly adopting this mode of judicial determination as part of a wider consideration as to whether Hong Kong should more permanently, post COVID-19, extend its use of remote hearings. Furthermore, this article will explore the implications which arise for advocacy-related training for Hong Kong students undertaking their Postgraduate Graduate Certificate in Laws (PCLL) programme, in order to ensure that such students are equipped for the ethical, technical and other skills-based challenges arising from these developments. In particular, this article will consider how existing PCLL benchmarks can be refined to facilitate this process.