Political commentators on Monday said the invitation to address the event showed the United Kingdom still recognised Hong Kong’s judicial independence despite the implementation of the national security law in 2020.

“A strong bar is sine qua non for a strong and independent judiciary,” Dawes was quoted as saying by the association in his speech to nearly 80 legal leaders from across the globe at the closed-door event. Sine qua non is a Latin term to describe something that is essential.

“We are fortunate that there is strong support from the judiciary in this regard,” he said, adding the strong and independent legal profession had enabled Hong Kong’s judicial system to operate independently.

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He also stressed the profession was regulated locally in accordance with the Legal Practitioners Ordinance, which grants the Bar Association and the Law Society – two major sector bodies in the city – the power to discipline barristers and lawyers.

The licensing and training of such professionals were not influenced by external factors, he said.

Asked about the views of other speakers, Dawes said there was “strong support” for the Hong Kong Bar during exchanges.

Law Society president Chan Chak-ming and former president Melissa Kaye Pang also attended the discussion on Sunday, as well as the opening ceremony for the legal year which was held on Monday in Westminster Abbey.

This is the second year Hong Kong has been invited to the UK’s legal year opening since the Covid-19 pandemic hit three years ago. Bar Association vice-chairman Jose Antonio Maurellet also attended the event.

According to a statement issued by the association, Dawes and Maurellet also sought to establish connections and exchange ideas with counterparts from other common law jurisdictions around the world, introducing to them the unique advantages of Hong Kong’s judicial environment.

“These exchanges and discussions are important to put Hong Kong on the international legal map and we are grateful that we are invited to speak,” Dawes told the Post when asked whether the invitation had shown the city was still welcome despite political controversies surrounding its legal system.

John Burns, honorary professor at the department of politics and public administration at the University of Hong Kong, said Dawes’ presence indicated that the legal profession in the UK was able to separate law and politics.

He said most of the friction between the UK and Hong Kong was “in large part the work of politicians”.

“The relative independence of Hong Kong’s legal profession and judiciary and the perception that they are so is important for foreign investors in Hong Kong [and mainland China],” Burns told the Post.

“Authorities in Hong Kong are chasing foreign investment, so to hear from experts like Dawes is important for the world, beyond [hearing from] politicians in the UK [and in Hong Kong].”

Professor Lau Siu-kai, a consultant with semi-official think tank the Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macau Studies, said the appearance and speech by the Bar Association head showed Hong Kong’s legal fraternity still enjoyed “pretty good” relations with their counterparts and commanded credibility in other common-law countries.

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But the political commentator predicted that criticism over Hong Kong’s rule of law would intensify. He pointed to the coming trials of media tycoon Jimmy Lai Chee-ying and the local legislation of Article 23 of the Basic Law, the city’s mini-constitution, which required Hong Kong to enact its own national security laws.

Lai, who has been in jail for more than 1,000 days, is expected to stand trial on December 18 on charges of sedition and conspiracy to collude with foreign forces.

At last year’s ceremony marking the start of the legal year, judges and lawyers in Britain expressed concerns about the implications of Hong Kong’s national security law, posing tough questions such as the higher standard defendants faced to post bail in cases under the legislation.

They also raised issues with the power of Hong Kong’s chief executive to hand-pick a pool of judges for national security cases and the lack of any jury trials in such proceedings.

The Beijing-imposed national security law, enacted in Hong Kong in June 2020, has been a major point of contention in UK-Hong Kong relations.

The most recent tensions centred on Hong Kong police announcing in July a HK$1 million (US$127,730) bounty for information leading to each arrest of eight activists based overseas and suspected of violating the security law.

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British foreign office minister Anne-Marie Trevelyan had said such acts would only further damage the city’s international reputation and standing and the British government would not tolerate attempts by the central or Hong Kong authorities to intimidate or silence anyone in the country.

Lord Robert Reed and the vice-president of the British Supreme Court, Lord Patrick Hodge, also resigned last year as overseas judges who heard cases in Hong Kong’s Court of Final Appeal, noting they agreed with the British government’s concerns over the security law.

They were among 12 overseas jurists from other common law jurisdictions serving as non-permanent judges in the top court, an arrangement that has stood as a strong endorsement of the city’s rule of law.

But then chief executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor accused Britain of putting politics before the law in response to the resignations, adding foreign judges were only asked to uphold the Basic Law, bear allegiance to Hong Kong and serve its people, not “to support the executive branch, or endorse its policies and measures”.