Jailed Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai Chee-ying and six former opposition lawmakers have lost a final appeal against their convictions over taking part in an illegal march during the 2019 anti-government protests.

The Court of Final Appeal on Monday refused to apply two British legal precedents cited by the appellants to overturn the convictions and jail sentences of the seven opposition figures, who also include veteran democrat Martin Lee Chu-ming.

The five presiding judges also dismissed the appellants’ contention that their prosecution constituted an excessive restriction on their freedom of expression and assembly.

The appeal centred on the seven’s roles in the mass demonstration that organisers was a “water flow assembly” at Victoria Park in Causeway Bay on August 18, 2019.

They were all convicted in 2021 of organising and taking part in the banned march.

A District Court judge imposed jail sentences of eight to 18 months on Lai, the founder of the now-closed Apple Daily newspaper, and three former opposition lawmakers – Lee Cheuk-yan, “Long Hair” Leung Kwok-hung and Cyd Ho Sau-lan.

Martin Lee and ex-legislators Albert Ho Chun-yan and Margaret Ng Ngoi-yee were given suspended jail sentences.

The Court of Appeal reduced the sentences of Lai, Lee Cheuk-yan, Leung Kwok-hung and Cyd Ho after it quashed the organising charges, but they had completed their sentences by the time the verdict was delivered last year.

The top court earlier rejected a request by some of the appellants for a review of its landmark decision in 2005, which implicitly accepted the legality of unauthorised assembly offences.

A prosecution request to reinstate the conviction of the seven for organisation of the march was also refused by appeal court judges.