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he too was very aggressive as very strong words came out of his statements in the Civic Party’s press conference. As to those who pleaded “ignorance of the law” as mitigation, we were satisfied that they might have been misled by D1 into thinking that the Scheme was not unlawful. On the other hand, there were a number of defendants who did not put this forward as mitigation in their written and oral submission. Nor did they raise the point in their mitigation letters. For these defendants, we take it that they have made an informed decision not to rely on it as mitigation.
Pre-NSL Conducts
33. It was submitted essentially by Counsel for D1 that this Court should not look at any pre-NSL conducts as they were not unlawful at the time.
34. We accepted that what the defendants had agreed to do was not criminal until after the enactment of the NSL. However, they remained willing parties to that agreement and continued their participation in the Scheme after it had been rendered criminal by the NSL. On this basis, although the charge period only commenced on the 1 July 2020, this Court could not, in our view, be prohibited from looking into facts or circumstances prior to the charge period in order to assess the seriousness and extensiveness of the conspiracy charged as well as the respective roles of the defendants in the Scheme. We however need to emphasis that the defendants are not sentenced for any of their individual acts prior to the NSL.
