Hong Kong’s justice department has asked an appeal court to remove a three-decade old rule and allow prosecutors to recommend specific punishments for certain offenders, but a judge declined to immediately consider the request given its potential “huge impact” on the legal system.The suggestion was made during a sentence review hearing on Thursday, where a senior prosecutor asked three appeal justices to hand down a heavier penalty to a 16-year-old who was given a three-year probation for…

This post was originally published on South China Morning Post.