My Take | Removing foreign judges would amount to abandoning Hong Kong
- There have been renewed concerns that Britain might remove its judges from the city. They still have a role to play in ensuring judicial independence
The fear that Britain will withdraw its judges from Hong Kong’s top court remains, despite a welcome decision in August that they would be allowed to stay.
This week, members of parliament are scheduled to discuss the role of the judges in a “Westminster Hall” debate led by former Conservative Party leader Iain Duncan Smith, an outspoken critic of Beijing.
There have been renewed concerns in Hong Kong legal circles that Britain might yet take the drastic step of removing its judges, who have been sitting part-time on the Court of Final Appeal for almost 25 years.
The service of the eight eminent serving and retired British judges continues to be controversial in the UK, almost two years after Beijing’s passing of a national security law.
That law was recently used to target British-based advocacy group Hong Kong Watch, prompting a backlash. The International Bar Association last week called on the world to suspend extradition treaties with Hong Kong.
The former editor of The Daily Telegraph, Charles Moore, referred to the controversy when questioning the presence of British judges in the city last week.
Concerns were also raised in February when former opposition lawmaker Fernando Cheung Chiu-hung was jailed for contempt over a protest in the legislature in 2020. His conviction was made possible by a landmark judgment of the top court delivered by judges including Robert Reed, president of Britain’s Supreme Court.