A sedition charge against former media tycoon Jimmy Lai was laid within the statutory time limit, the High Court ruled on Friday.

The decision means Lai, founder of the now-defunct Apple Daily newspaper, failed to have his charge of conspiring to print seditious publications dismissed.

He's also accused of colluding with foreign forces to endanger national security.

Representing Lai, senior counsel Robert Pang had argued that the charge over seditious publications was filed too late for the alleged conspiracy running between April 2019 and June 2021, because his client was brought to court for the first time to face the charge four days past the statutory six-month window.

Government prosecutor Anthony Chau argued that the prosecution had been instituted within the time limit. He also said conspiracy is by nature a continuing act, and more than 160 articles published during the duration of the alleged conspiracy should all be taken into consideration as part of the case.

On Friday, the panel of national security judges Esther Toh, Susana D’Almada Remedios and Alex Lee ruled that the starting point of the six-month window should be on June 24, 2021, when the alleged offence was said to be last committed, and the deadline would be on December 24 that year.

The judges agreed with the prosecution that the alleged sedition in the case, being a conspiracy charge, was a continuing offence.

“We can see no unfairness or injustice to the accused if the time only starts to run from the last, rather than the first date of the conspiracy charge, so long as there is sufficient evidence to support the prosecution’s case that there was one single conspiratorial agreement covering the whole of the charge period,” they wrote.

The bench also ruled that the prosecution of the sedition charge began when the relevant information was presented to the court.

“As the information of the Sedition Charge was received by and laid at the West Kowloon Magistracy on 14 December 2021, ten days before 24 December 2021 after which the charge would have been time barred, we are therefore of the view that the charge is not time barred,” the judges wrote.

The trial resumes on January 2.