As published in The Times.
British judges on Hong Kong’s top court could withdraw in protest at Beijing’s latest crackdown, senior figures have warned.
Lord Reed, president of the UK Supreme Court and one of ten British judges on the Hong Kong bench, has indicated to The Times that a decision will be made soon.
Hong Kong’s final court of appeal was founded as part of the 1997 agreement that handed over the former colony to China.
In a statement from the Supreme Court, made as shadow ministers said that the judges should quit, officials said “Lord Reed has been in close contact with the foreign secretary and lord chancellor on matters for some time and, together with them, is reviewing the operation of the agreement under which UK judges have served there since 1997. We hope to say more in due course.”
Lisa Nandy, the shadow foreign secretary, and Lord Falconer of Thoroton QC, a former justice secretary and the shadow attorney-general, have called for the ten UK judges on the Hong Kong bench to step down. A joint statement said their presence “now serves only to legitimise a compromised political and legal system”.
“While it had been hoped that the continuing role of UK judges could help preserve judicial independence and the rule of law in the face of the actions of the Chinese government and Hong Kong authorities, the sustained campaign to undermine democracy has fundamentally changed the context,” Nandy and Falconer said.
It had become “increasingly clear that the national security law, the wider actions to arrest and intimidate opposition figures and the latest decision of the National People’s Congress are fundamentally prejudicing the political and legal system in Hong Kong”.
Reed and Lord Hodge, deputy president of the Supreme Court, are both on the list of “non-permanent” overseas judges that sit on Hong Kong’s court.
They are joined by three former presidents of the Supreme Court, Lady Hale, Lord Neuberger and Lord Phillips, two former Supreme Court justices, Lord Sumption and Lord Collins, and three former members of the judicial committee of the House of Lords, Lord Hoffman, Lord Millett and Lord Walker. Three Australians and one Canadian round out the group of overseas judges on the court.
Neuberger and Hoffmann have heard cases before the Hong Kong court within the last six months. Remuneration for the British judges is calculated on a pro rata basis and pegged to the monthly salary of their permanent counterparts on the bench. Permanent judges are paid HK$376,600, or about £35,000, a month.
Nathan Law, a leading democracy campaigner living in exile in London, called for the judges to quit. He said that the territory’s legal system “has been fundamentally undermined by the Chinese government’s steady suffocation of Hong Kong’s autonomy. By serving in Hong Kong, British judges are therefore giving a veneer of credibility to a system which is now utterly lacking in legitimacy”.
Lord Pannick QC, who often appears at Hong Kong courts, argued that the British judges should remain. “The Hong Kong judiciary is doing all it can to maintain its independence,” he said. “Labour politicians here should listen to the legal community in Hong Kong — most of them no friends of Beijing. They want to be supported by lawyers and judges in this country, not abandoned.”