A general view shows the interior of the Court of Final Appeal (CFA) at Central, in Hong Kong, China September 18, 2015. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu
LONDON/HONG KONG, March 30 – Two senior British judges, including the President of the United Kingdom’s Supreme Court, resigned from Hong Kong’s Supreme Court on Wednesday because China imposed a sweeping national security law on the former British colony that cracks down on dissent .
Robert Reed, who heads the UK’s top judiciary, said he and his colleague Patrick Hodge would step down from their roles as non-permanent judges at the Hong Kong Court of Appeal (CFA) with immediate effect.
“I have come to the conclusion, in agreement with the government, that Supreme Court justices cannot continue to meet in Hong Kong without appearing to support a government that has deviated from the values of political liberty and freedom of expression.” , Reed said in a statement.
Britain, which returned Hong Kong to China in 1997, said the security law, which punishes crimes such as subversion with up to life imprisonment, had been used to curb dissent and freedoms. London also says the law violates the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration that paved the way for the handover.
Many of the city’s democratic activists have been arrested, imprisoned or forced into exile, civil society groups have been shuttered and liberal media outlets have been shuttered due to security measures since the law went into effect in June 2020.
Beijing says the law has brought stability to Hong Kong, which was rocked by months of sometimes violent anti-government street protests in 2019, and that it includes human rights guarantees.
Hong Kong Chief Justice Andrew Cheung said in a statement he read with “regret” the resignations of Reed and Hodge, saying the judiciary is committed to the rule of law and foreign judges have made valuable contributions to the city’s courts .
Justice Minister Teresa Cheng said in a statement released after the resignations, “The constitutional foundation on which our judicial independence rests will not be shaken.”
PRESSURE ON OTHER FOREIGN JUDGES
British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said Hong Kong has seen “a systematic erosion of freedom and democracy”.
“The situation has reached a tipping point where it is no longer tenable for British judges to sit on Hong Kong’s top court and (to do so) would risk legitimizing repression,” she added.
Truss this month criticized Hong Kong authorities for accusing a UK-based human rights group of colluding with foreign forces in a “probable” breach of security law. Continue reading
In a report on Hong Kong last December, she said that while judicial independence is becoming more delicate, she believes British judges can still “play a positive role in supporting that judicial independence”.
The presence of foreign judges in Hong Kong is enshrined in the Basic Law, the mini-constitution that guarantees the freedoms and broad autonomy of the global financial center under Chinese rule, including the continuation of Hong Kong’s customary law traditions forged during the colonial era.
Reed has previously said he would not serve in the HKCFA if the city’s judiciary was undermined.
Local lawyers said the resignations are likely to put pressure on the 10 other foreign appeals court judges to resign. Six of them are British.
These judges, also from Canada and Australia, are mostly retired high-ranking lawyers in their home countries, unlike Reed and Hodge, who were still in office.
Two other foreign judges, Brit Brenda Hale and Australian James Spigelman, have also resigned from the city’s top court since 2020.
“It’s a huge blow to the local fraternity and Hong Kong’s great tradition of rule of law,” a senior lawyer told Reuters. “With all the pressures that are ahead of us, we really needed them and I dread what’s next.”
In a statement on Wednesday, Hong Kong Law Society President Chan Chak Ming called on Reed and Hodge to reconsider their role of foreign judges.
reporting by Michael Holden and William James in London and Greg Torode and James Pomfret in Hong Kong; Edited by Kate Holton, Barbara Lewis, John Stonestreet and Nick Macfie