Macau's First National Security Case Closes Court Doors: Au Kam San on Trial, Public Can't See How Prosecution Proves "Subversion"

Macau's First National Security Case Closes Court Doors: Au Kam San on Trial, Public Can't See How Prosecution Proves "Subversion"\n\nMacau's first national security case began its trial behind closed doors on September 16, with former legislator Au Kam San facing charges of subverting state power. The court cited the possibility of severely damaging national security interests as the reason for refusing public access, making the evidence, cross-examination, and defense process inaccessible to public observation.\n\nThe trial has begun, but the public is not allowed in.\n\nOn September 16, the Court of First Instance of Macau tried the case of former legislator Au Kam San. This is the first national security case to enter the trial stage since the implementation of Macau's Maintenance of National Security Law. The court did not open the trial to the public, and journalists were unable to enter the courtroom to understand how the prosecution and defense presented evidence and conducted cross-examinations. The Macau government news bureau later released a statement from the judiciary: the panel of judges decided that the trial would not be held in public, citing the reason that a public trial could "seriously harm national security interests".\n\n

\n\nThis statement has created a special situation for Macau's first national security trial from the very beginning: society knows that someone is being tried for allegedly endangering national security, but cannot directly observe how the country proves this accusation.\n\nWhat can be confirmed outside the court\n\nAu Kam San had long been a member of the Macau Legislative Assembly and participated in the Macau Democratic Development Union and June 4th memorial activities. When the Macau Judiciary Police announced the arrest in July 2025, they stated that a Macau resident was suspected of posting a large number of "inciting information" on foreign network platforms since 2022 and providing "false and inciting information" to organizations outside Macau. The authorities launched an investigation based on suspected violations of the Maintenance of National Security Law. Public reports later confirmed that the arrested person was Au Kam San.\n\n

\n\nThe prosecution announced in April this year that the investigation had been completed and an indictment had been filed, involving charges such as "subversion of state power" and "establishing contacts with organizations, groups, or individuals outside Macau to engage in activities that endanger national security". Au Kam San has been in custody since his arrest.\n\nThese are the outlines of the case that can be pieced together outside the court. However, the parts that truly determine criminal liability

• which articles or speeches are listed as evidence, which foreign contacts are deemed criminal, how the prosecution proves intent, and how the defense rebuts
• have been removed from public view along with the closed trial.\n\nThe reason given by the Macau court is not to protect witness privacy or involve minors, but rather the national security interests themselves.\n\nThe first case has become the first test of procedure\n\nMacau's national security law took effect in 2009 and underwent significant revisions in 2023, expanding the scope of related crimes and law enforcement frameworks. Over the years, this law has not produced any criminal cases that have entered public trials. The Au Kam San case thus not only involves a defendant but also allows the outside world to see for the first time how the national security system, after revisions, truly enters the criminal court.\n\nHowever, what the public sees first is a closed door.\n\nClosed trials do not necessarily mean that the case itself is illegal; many judicial systems allow for restrictions on public trials when involving state secrets, minors, or specific security risks. The key difference lies in the fact that the principle of public trials in criminal cases originally serves as an external supervision function: the public can know how the prosecution uses state power, how the court examines evidence, how the defendant exercises their right to defense, and what facts the final judgment is based on.\n\nWhen the case itself is called "national security," and national security becomes the reason for a non-public trial, this supervision creates a cycle: the more severe the charges, the more the public needs to understand the evidence; but the more the case is deemed to involve security, the less evidence the public may be able to see.\n\nAu Kam San's political career has stopped at the defendant's seat\n\nAu Kam San is not a stranger who suddenly appeared in a national security case. He had been a member of the Macau Legislative Assembly since 2001, long focusing on labor, social welfare, and democratic reforms, and had also participated in Macau's annual June 4th memorial activities. After the democratic space in Macau continued to shrink, he did not run for the Legislative Assembly in 2021.\n\nNow, his past political expressions, which could once appear in the legislature, street memorial activities, and public articles, have been put into the evidence framework of a criminal case. What the prosecution can ultimately prove, what evidence the court will accept, and what the verdict will be based on, remains to be confirmed by the judgment; one cannot equate being prosecuted with the charges being established facts simply because of the indictment.\n\nHowever, the trial process itself has already produced a fact that does not need to wait for the verdict to be observed: Macau's first national security case has not shown the public its evidence examination process.\n\nA case with precedent significance has left behind not only the question of "whether Au Kam San is guilty." In the future, when others are prosecuted in Macau for articles, political contacts, foreign organization interactions, or other national security charges, this trial may become a systemic reference. How the first case interprets the boundaries of crimes, handles evidence, guarantees defense, and what content can be seen by the public may all impact how later cases understand the actual boundaries of this law.\n\nThe court's doors can be closed due to legal reasons, but they also take away the public's opportunity to personally inspect the judicial process. For Macau's first national security trial, this is one of the most important procedural facts left behind on September 16.