Hong Kong holds firm on role of foreign judges after top court row. But for how much longer?
- Some commentators downplay recent exits of UK judges, saying city should still seek out ‘heavyweights’ to sit on top court
Hong Kong’s judicial independence and state of the rule of law were thrust into the spotlight last month when a senior British judge resigned from the city’s top court and went public with his reasons.
Jonathan Sumption, 75, a former UK Supreme Court justice who had been among the pool of overseas judges in Hong Kong’s Court of Final Appeal, sparked controversy when he wrote in the Financial Times that the city was “slowly becoming a totalitarian state”.
His June 10 opinion article headlined “The rule of law in Hong Kong is in grave danger” appeared just over a week after 14 opposition figures were convicted of subversion in the city’s biggest national security trial.
He said the ruling was “legally indefensible” and “symptomatic of a growing malaise in the Hong Kong judiciary”.
He did not stop with that piece. Sumption went on to tell the BBC the verdict was “a major indication of the lengths to which some judges are prepared to go to ensure that Beijing’s campaign against those who have supported democracy succeeds”.
Other overseas judges have been more optimistic that their presence “might moderate the persecutory zeal of the authorities”, but Sumption insisted he saw no useful purpose in remaining.
His scathing remarks drew a 2,900-word rebuttal from the Hong Kong government, which disagreed strongly that the courts came under political pressure and criticised him for unfair comment on the work of the city’s judges while choosing to “abandon them”.
