Following discussions with the UK government, the president and deputy president of the UK Supreme Court on Wednesday resigned from their roles in the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal (HKCFA).
UK Supreme Court judges have long sat on the HKCFA “in fulfilment” of the government’s obligations towards the former British colony and have done so with the support of the government, which assessed their participation “was in the UK’s national interests,” according to Supreme Court President Robert Reed.
The senior judge said he had come to the conclusion in agreement with the government.
In a separate statement, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss and Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab supported the withdrawal of serving UK judges from the HKCFA.
“We have seen a systematic erosion of liberty and democracy in Hong Kong. Since the National Security Law was imposed, authorities have cracked down on free speech, the free press, and free association,” Truss said.
The foreign secretary said she welcomes and “wholeheartedly” supports the withdrawal as the situation in Hong Kong has “reached a tipping point where it is no longer tenable for British judges to sit on Hong Kong’s leading court, and would risk legitimising oppression.”
Raab said the introduction of the national security law “flies in the face” of the Sino–British Joint Declaration.
Therefore, “having discussed at length with [the] Foreign Secretary and the President of the Supreme Court, we regretfully agree that it is no longer appropriate for serving UK judges to continue sitting in Hong Kong courts,” Raab said.
Alistair Carmichael, chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Hong Kong, said the withdrawal is “a positive step” and called on the government to do more to support Hongkongers.
“The foreign secretary’s announcement sends a clear and vital message that the government does not support UK judges lending credibility to the corrupt Hong Kong judicial system. The imposition of the national security law has proven beyond doubt that those leading Hong Kong intend to govern by totalitarian force rather than by the will of the people. It is right that UK judges should no longer be a part of that system,” the Scottish Liberal Democrat MP said in an email to The Epoch Times.
“Today’s announcement from the foreign secretary is a positive step but it cannot be the last. Hongkongers, both those still in the city and here in the UK, still need our support,” he said.
Alan Mendoza, co-founder and executive director of foreign policy and national security at the Henry Jackson Society think tank, said the decision is “overdue but welcome.”
Reacting to the news on Twitter, Mendoza said the withdrawal of British judges is “a recognition that justice is no longer being administered through the rule of law, but instead dispensed by Chinese Communist Party diktat.”
Hong Kong advocates in the UK also welcomed the news.
“Today’s news reflects the sad reality that the national security law has torn apart the human rights and constitutional safeguards which made Hong Kong meaningfully autonomous. The British judges’ ongoing presence was providing a veneer of legitimacy for a fundamentally compromised system, and the British government is right to have taken steps to recall them,” Benedict Rogers, co-founder and CEO of the Hong Kong Watch NGO, told The Epoch Times in an email.
“The two judges who have resigned have done the right thing and we hope all remaining foreign judges will follow suit,” he said.
Earlier this month, Hong Kong Watch said Rogers received correspondence from the Hong Kong Police Force’s National Security Department, accusing the British-registered charity of violating the national security law by colluding with foreign forces to endanger national security, and threatening a HK$100,000 ($13,000) fine and up to three years imprisonment.
Hongkonger expat association Hongkongers in Britain (HKB) also said it welcomes the news.
“Since the Hong Kong ‘National (State) Security Law’ has been imposed by Beijing in 2020, such ill-defined law criminalises critical thoughts of the state and government,” HKB said in a statement to The Epoch Times.
“Such suppression and chilling effects come down to not only frontline activists, but all walks of life, it targets not people in Hong Kong, but all human beings around the world.
“The threat of the Hong Kong National (State) Security law to UK-based groups and individuals is blatantly trampling on the UK’s judicial sovereignty and the integrity of the democratic and free system. It shows the expansionary nature of totalitarian autocracy, from economic to judicial means, to suppress dissent around the world, and in the UK.”
HKB said it welcomes the decision to withdraw serving UK judges from the HKCFA “as such move gives Hong Kong judiciary no longer endorsement to such a corrupted and suppressive legal regime.”
“The rule of law with [the] heritage of the common law system claimed by the Hong Kong government, as a bastion for civil liberty and business arbitration, comes to the end,” the statement reads.
The presence of foreign judges in Hong Kong is enshrined in the Basic Law, the mini-constitution that guarantees the global financial hub’s freedoms and extensive autonomy under Chinese rule, including the continuation of Hong Kong’s common law traditions forged during the British colonial era.
Reed has previously said he would not serve on the HKCFA in the event the judiciary in the city was undermined.
