Letters | Hong Kong’s rule of law remains strong despite foreign judges leaving

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A pedestrian passes the Court of Final Appeal in Hong Kong in 2022. Two British judges have resigned from the city’s top court, and a Canadian judge is retiring. Photo: AP

Published: 11:30am, 19 Jun 2024

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The recent departure of three non-permanent judges from Hong Kong’s Court of Final Appeal will not disable the judiciary’s function as court of law. The departing judges have all confirmed that the city’s judges are professional and independent in performing their judicial functions. Judicial independence and the integrity of judges in Hong Kong are indubitable.

The political situation in Hong Kong has been complicated since the West began attacking the city’s rule of law. In 2021, Jonathan Sumption, one of the departing judges, wrote in The Times that since 2020, “there have been calls for British judges to withdraw”. In 2022, Robert Reed and Patrick Hodge stepped down, as the United Kingdom announced that its serving judges would not sit on the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal.

United States congressmen introduced a bill calling for sanctions against Hong Kong judges in 2023, a move Sumption described as “crude, counterproductive and unjust”. Days before the three judges’ departure, The Independent ran an article attacking the independence of Hong Kong’s British judges.

Despite political pressure, the overseas judges in Hong Kong have remained highly professional and decided cases based on the law. Explaining the judgment in a rioting case, Sumption said: “The Court of Final Appeal rejected the excessively broad submissions of the prosecutors about the test for participation in a riot. The result was a statement of the law similar to that which would apply in England.” His then colleague Leonard Hoffmann said the judgment in the case of a convicted journalist was upheld within the framework of the Public Order Ordinance enacted by the British in 1967.

The court of law is the cornerstone of Hong Kong’s prosperity, and should be maintained no matter how the political situation changes. Only the law prevails inside Hong Kong’s courts, not politics or ideology. All professional judges will apply the law when they sit on Hong Kong courts. This protects foreign investment by ensuring the certainty of the rule of law. Given the independence of the judiciary and its function as court of law, foreign investors would be confident about investing in Hong Kong.