No Lawyer Will Speak for You. How to Prepare a Hong Kong Small Claims Hearing
Applies in Hong Kong SAR
You cannot hire an advocate for this hearing. Section 19(2) of the Small Claims Tribunal Ordinance says that no barrister or solicitor has a right of audience before the Tribunal unless he is acting on his own behalf as a claimant or defendant. So the person who has to know the file, open the case and cross-examine the other side is you. The Judiciary publishes exactly what it expects you to bring and what happens on the day — down to how your pages should be numbered. This is that specification, assembled in the order you will need it.
Who is actually allowed to speak
The Tribunal hears monetary claims founded in contract, quasi-contract or tort where the amount claimed is not more than $75,000. The trade-off for that speed and informality is section 19, and it is stricter than most people expect.
Section 19(1) lists everyone with a right of audience, and the list is short. Section 19(2) then closes the door on lawyers with one narrow exception — and it is not the exception anyone hopes for: a solicitor may appear, but only when the solicitor is personally the claimant or the defendant.
| Who | Right of audience? | Provision |
|---|---|---|
| You, as a party | Yes | s.19(1)(a) |
| An officer or servant of a company, where the company is a party | Yes | s.19(1)(b) |
| A member of a partnership, where the partners are parties | Yes | s.19(1)(c) |
| Someone you authorise in writing — a relative, a colleague | Only with the Tribunal's leave, and only if that person is not counsel or a solicitor | s.19(1)(d) |
| A barrister or solicitor you instruct | No | s.19(2) |
| A barrister or solicitor who is personally the claimant or defendant | Yes — on their own behalf only | s.19(2) |
The only other time a lawyer may be heard is in proceedings under section 35A, which deals with insulting behaviour at a hearing. Taking legal advice beforehand is not restricted; it is representation in the room that is.
Your claim has three kinds of hearing, not one
Most people picture a single day in court. The Tribunal runs a sequence, and what you owe is different at each stop.
The call-over is the first hearing. Set aside at least half a day or more for it — that is the Judiciary's own advice, not a safety margin. A Tribunal Officer interviews both sides to classify the case as defended or undefended, to try to bring about a settlement on a voluntary basis and, failing that, to identify the main issues in dispute. Note the limit on that help: the Tribunal Officer cannot give you legal advice.
If the case does not settle, the adjudicator gives directions — what each side must file and serve, and by when. That typically covers the defence and any counterclaim, the reply, the witness statements, and other supporting documents such as surveyor's reports or photographs. The case is then adjourned to a mention hearing, and there may be more than one, depending on how ready the parties are.
If you send someone in your place under section 19(1)(d), bring a proper letter of authorization — and send someone who knows the file. The pamphlet's instruction is to ensure he is familiar with the facts of the case.
What each hearing is for
- Call-over. Classification, a settlement attempt, and directions. Bring everything in the nine-item list below.
- Mention. The adjudicator reviews with the parties whether they have collected sufficient evidence, and may again direct an exchange of statements and documents by a specified date. Bring everything you have filed and everything you have received.
- Trial. All parties and all witnesses attend. Evidence on oath, cross-examination, then optional closing submissions.
The moment your evidence closes
One sentence in the Judiciary's pamphlet governs everything else, and most self-represented claimants never read it: The Adjudicator may fix a date for trial only if all parties confirm that they have no further evidence to produce.
Read it the other way round. The trial date is not a deadline you prepare towards — it is a door that opens because you said you had finished gathering. The invoice you meant to dig out, the message thread you meant to export, the delivery note still sitting with your supplier: if it is not in by the time you give that confirmation, you have confirmed your way out of it.
The other half of the same mechanism is the penalty for missing a direction, and the pamphlet is blunt about it. If directions are not complied with, the claim may be dismissed or a judgment entered against the defendant without trial, and costs may be ordered against the party in default. Section 26A is the statutory power behind that: where a party fails to comply within the time specified, the Tribunal may dismiss the claim or counterclaim, stay the proceedings, or enter judgment against that party.
The bundle: nine things to have, and who each is for
If you have read a guide about preparing a trial bundle — agreed between the parties, paginated, lodged at least three clear working days before trial — that is the higher courts' regime under Practice Direction 5.6, and it is not what the Tribunal runs on. Here, what you file and when is set by the directions the adjudicator gives in your own case.
What the Judiciary does publish for the Tribunal is a checklist of what to bring and a set of rules about copies. Put together, they come to nine items.
The nine-item bundle
- Everything already filed, and everything received. Asked for at the call-over and at every mention: the adjudicator may refer to any of it during the hearing.
- Originals not yet filed — plus two sets of photocopies. The pamphlet is specific about the number: the original documents supporting your claim or defence, and 2 sets of photocopies, one for filing with the Tribunal and one for service on the other party.
- Your own witness statement. Usually the claimant and defendant give evidence themselves, and in that case they should prepare their own witness statements.
- A separate statement for every other witness, each containing only what that witness personally knows. One statement cannot carry another person's account.
- The documents the debt rests on — contract, quotation, invoice, receipt, statement of account, delivery note. Preferably a witness gives a statement explaining the contents and significance of those documents.
- Photographs: in colour, affixed on A4 paper, numbered. Where a document is coloured and the colour carries significance, the coloured copy is what you file and serve.
- Proof of who each side legally is. If you are a company, a copy of the updated Annual Return; if a firm, the Business Registration Application Form. Suing a company, bring its most updated registered office information; suing a firm, its Business Registration Application Form.
- A letter of authorization, if anyone is appearing for you under section 19(1)(d).
- An expert's report — only if the dispute turns on a technical question outside the adjudicator's knowledge, such as the reasonable cost of repairing a damaged vehicle or the accepted quality standard for particular goods or services. Experts are expensive; the pamphlet invites you to ask the adjudicator whether one is needed at all.
Number your pages C1, C2 — the detail nobody tells you
As a case goes along, both sides file more statements and more documents. The Judiciary's fix is a convention worth adopting from your very first filing: paginate the documents as a whole, and prefix each number with the side it came from.
The claimant's pages start with C — C1, C2, C3. The defendant's start with D — D1, D2, D3. The point is spoken performance. When you say 'C7, third paragraph', the adjudicator and the other side land on the same sheet at the same moment, and you have not lost the thread of your own argument while a room full of people shuffles paper.
The rest of the paper rules are about matching copies. A copy of every statement and document you rely on is filed with the Tribunal in accordance with its directions; an identical copy is served on the other party at the same time; and you keep the originals, ready for inspection by the Tribunal or the other party at any hearing or trial.
| Document | File with the Tribunal | Serve on the other party | Original |
|---|---|---|---|
| Witness statements | Copy, per the Tribunal's directions | Identical copy, same time | You keep it, ready for inspection |
| Invoices, receipts, letters | Copy | Identical copy, same time | You keep it |
| Photographs | Coloured copy, affixed on A4, numbered | Coloured copy | You keep it |
| Anything where colour carries meaning | Coloured copy | Coloured copy | You keep it |
Pagination runs across the whole set, not per document — that is what makes a single page reference unambiguous.
The witness statement is the case
A witness statement is the usual form of evidence in civil proceedings, and its job is narrow: an account of the facts that witness will give as evidence in court, all of them within that witness's personal knowledge.
Step outside personal knowledge and the statement stops working. The adjudicator may refuse to admit those facts as evidence, or give them little or no importance even if they are admitted. The pamphlet's own example is a witness describing a traffic accident they did not see: relating what others said about it is not personal knowledge, and is unlikely to be accepted.
Two consequences catch small businesses in particular. A company cannot make a witness statement — a corporation or a firm is not an individual, so the statement must come from an officer, an employee or another individual who personally knows the facts. And if the person who actually dealt with the customer has since left, the statement has to come from someone who was there, or the documents have to carry the weight alone.
- Concise in style but comprehensive in contents, covering all the facts relevant to the claim, any counterclaim, and the matters in dispute.
- Facts in chronological order, in separate numbered paragraphs.
- Signed by the witness at the end, with the witness's name on it.
- A blank form is available from the Tribunal Registry or the Information Centre, from the Judiciary's website, or by fax through the Tribunal's Interactive Voice Recording System.
If a witness will not come: three weeks
Once a trial date is fixed, making sure your witnesses actually turn up is your job — and before the day, they should refresh their memories of what they said in their statements.
If a witness is unwilling to attend, you may apply to the adjudicator for leave to take out a witness summons. The application should be made at least 3 weeks before the trial date, on Form 5, obtainable from the Tribunal Registry, the Information Centre, the Judiciary's website or by fax through the Interactive Voice Recording System. The prescribed witness expenses are paid by you, the applicant.
Three weeks is the number to diarise the moment a trial date is set. A witness who goes quiet in the last fortnight is a witness you can no longer compel.
The day itself: three stages, in a fixed order
Everyone attends. If the claimant is absent the Tribunal may strike out the claim; if the defendant is absent it may enter judgment in his absence, but only provided the claimant can prove the case. Absence on either side is its own subject; what matters here is that your own attendance is not optional.
Witnesses give oral evidence on oath or affirmation, and the pamphlet states the consequence plainly: a witness found not to have told the truth in court may be liable to criminal prosecution and imprisonment.
The claimant and his witnesses give evidence first, then the defendant and his. Each witness goes through the same three stages.
How each witness is heard
- Examination-in-chief — the witness gives the Tribunal an account of the facts he thinks relevant.
- Cross-examination — the witness answers questions put by the other party. This is your turn on their witnesses, and theirs on you.
- Re-examination — the party who called the witness may put further questions, but only to clarify matters raised in cross-examination. It is not a second chance to add what was forgotten.
What a win pays for — and the behaviour that costs $10,000
There are no legal fees to recover, because there were no lawyers. What section 24 allows the Tribunal to award is narrower, and worth claiming: any reasonable expenses necessarily incurred and any loss of salary or wages suffered by a party, and any reasonable sum paid to a witness for the same, in attending the hearing.
That turns your time at the Tribunal into a recoverable item rather than a sunk cost — if you can evidence it. Keep the payslip or employer's letter showing the day's pay you lost, and the receipts for witness expenses you paid. An award of costs must state the amount each liable party pays, and it is enforceable in the same way as any other award of the Tribunal.
At the other end of the scale, section 35A lets an adjudicator summarily sentence a person who uses a threatening or insulting expression, behaves in an insulting manner, or wilfully interrupts the hearing — to a fine at level 3, which the Judiciary's pamphlet states as $10,000, and imprisonment for 6 months. Summarily means on the spot, without a separate trial. Whatever the other side says about you in that room, address the adjudicator, not them.
Rehearse the questions before the adjudicator asks them
Everything above is the Judiciary's own specification, and it is a specification for documents. What it cannot tell you is how your case sounds when somebody tests it.
That is the gap the trial exposes. By then you will have read your own statement so many times that its weak point has become invisible to you, and the first person to name it out loud will be the adjudicator — or the defendant, in cross-examination. Neither is a good moment to hear it for the first time.
Trial AI runs your facts through a mock hearing: an AI adjudicator asks the questions your file invites, cross-examines the account you have written, and returns the points that did not hold. It is not legal advice, and it cannot appear for you — under section 19(2), nothing and nobody can. What it can do is make sure the case you have to argue yourself is one you have already argued once.
Frequently asked questions
Can I bring a lawyer to the Hong Kong Small Claims Tribunal? No. Section 19(2) says no barrister or solicitor has a right of audience before the Tribunal unless acting on his own behalf as a claimant or defendant. You may take legal advice before the hearing; you may not be represented at it. With the Tribunal's leave you may authorise someone in writing to appear for you, provided that person is not counsel or a solicitor.
What do I need to bring to the hearing? Everything you have filed and everything you have received from the other side; the originals supporting your claim that have not yet been filed, plus 2 sets of photocopies; your own witness statement and one for each other witness; the contract, invoices and receipts the debt rests on; coloured photographs affixed on A4 and numbered; your updated Annual Return if you are a company or your Business Registration Application Form if you are a firm; and a letter of authorization if someone is appearing for you.
How should I number the pages? Paginate the documents as a whole. The claimant's pages start with C — C1, C2, C3 — and the defendant's start with D — D1, D2, D3 — so that one page reference identifies one sheet for the adjudicator and the other party at the same time.
When is the trial date fixed? At a mention hearing, and only when all parties confirm they have no further evidence to produce. Until you give that confirmation the adjudicator can keep directing the parties to gather and exchange evidence; after it, you go to trial with the file as it stands.
What if my witness refuses to attend? Apply to the adjudicator for leave to take out a witness summons, using Form 5, at least 3 weeks before the trial date. You pay the prescribed witness expenses.
Can I recover anything if I win? There are no legal fees to recover, because lawyers cannot appear. Section 24 allows the Tribunal to award reasonable expenses necessarily incurred and any loss of salary or wages suffered in attending the hearing — both for a party and for a witness.
Sources: Judiciary Pamphlet 5 — How to prepare for and conduct a hearing or trial (PDF), Judiciary Pamphlet 6 — Documents required in a small claim case (PDF), Small Claims Tribunal Ordinance (Cap. 338), e-Legislation, Judiciary — Small Claims Tribunal, CLIC — Preparing the bundle of documents before trial. Section numbers are cited from the Small Claims Tribunal Ordinance (Cap. 338) as published on Hong Kong e-Legislation; procedural requirements and quoted wording are from the Judiciary's own Guide to Court Services pamphlets for the Small Claims Tribunal, current at the time of writing. Practice and forms change — confirm with the Tribunal Registry before you file. This is general procedural information, not legal advice.