I had the privilege of working with the group as its professional planning adviser through all the Town Planning Board and court processes that took place. What it has achieved needs to be fully appreciated.

The society was founded in 1995. The next year, its vice-chair, legislator Christine Loh Kung-wai, introduced the private members’ bill that was to become the Protection of the Harbour Ordinance. The law was short but powerful, requiring all public officers to protect the harbour from reclamation. The ordinance, which came into force on June 30, 1997, was one of the final legislative acts of the outgoing British administration.

The government at the time was planning for a major makeover of Central and Wan Chai that involved reclaiming much of the harbour between the Star Ferry pier and North Point, including filling in the Causeway Bay typhoon shelter. When the Town Planning Board accepted these plans, against the submissions of the society, the group challenged its decisions through judicial reviews, the most significant of which was the one filed in February 2003 that reached the top court.

I did not realise at the time how significant these challenges were. To my knowledge, it was the first time civil society had mounted a legal challenge against the government since the handover. The question on our minds was: how would the legal process stand up under the new “one country, two systems” context?