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LONDON/HONG KONG — Two senior British judges, together with the president of the UK Supreme Court docket, resigned from Hong Kong’s highest courtroom on Wednesday due to a sweeping nationwide safety legislation China imposed on Britain’s former colony cracking down on dissent.
Robert Reed, who heads Britain’s high judicial physique, mentioned that he and colleague Patrick Hodge would relinquish their roles with speedy impact as non-permanent judges on the Hong Kong Court docket of Ultimate Attraction (CFA).
“I’ve concluded, in settlement with the federal government, that the judges of the Supreme Court docket can’t proceed to sit down in Hong Kong with out showing to endorse an administration which has departed from values of political freedom, and freedom of expression,” Reed mentioned in an announcement.
Britain, which handed Hong Kong again to China in 1997, has mentioned the safety legislation that punishes offenses like subversion with as much as life imprisonment has been used to curb dissent and freedoms. London additionally says the legislation is a breach of the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration that paved the way in which for the handover.
Most of the metropolis’s democratic campaigners have been arrested, detained, or compelled into exile, civil society teams shuttered and liberal media retailers compelled to shut beneath a safety crackdown for the reason that legislation was enacted in June 2020.
Beijing says the legislation has introduced stability to Hong Kong, rocked by months of generally violent anti-government road protests in 2019, and that it consists of human rights safeguards.
Hong Kong Secretary for Justice Teresa Cheng mentioned in an announcement launched after the resignations: “The constitutional bedrock upon which our judicial independence is premised won’t be shaken.” Chief Justice Andrew Cheung didn’t instantly remark.
Strain on different overseas judges
British International Secretary Liz Truss mentioned Hong Kong had witnessed “a scientific erosion of liberty and democracy.”
“The state of affairs has reached a tipping level the place it’s now not tenable for British judges to sit down on Hong Kong’s main courtroom, and (this) would threat legitimizing oppression,” she added.
Truss this month criticized Hong Kong authorities for accusing British-based human rights teams of colluding with overseas forces in a “possible” violation of the safety legislation.
READ: The shadowy messengers delivering threats to Hong Kong civil society
In a report on Hong Kong final December, she mentioned that whereas judicial independence was more and more finely balanced, she believed British judges might nonetheless “play a constructive function in supporting this judicial independence.”
The presence of overseas judges in Hong Kong is enshrined within the Fundamental Legislation, the mini-constitution that ensures the worldwide monetary hub’s freedoms and intensive autonomy beneath Chinese language rule, together with the continuation of Hong Kong’s frequent legislation traditions cast through the colonial period.
Reed has beforehand mentioned he wouldn’t serve on the HKCFA within the occasion the judiciary within the metropolis was undermined.
Native legal professionals mentioned the resignations would possible put strain on the ten different overseas Court docket of Ultimate Attraction judges to stop. Six of those are British.
READ: Hong Kong activist behind Tiananmen vigil sentenced to fifteen months in jail
These judges, additionally from Canada and Australia, are principally retired senior jurists of their residence international locations, in contrast to Reed and Hodge, who had been nonetheless serving.
Two different overseas judges, Britain’s Brenda Hale and Australia’s James Spigelman, have additionally stepped down from town’s highest courtroom since 2020.
“It’s a large blow to the native fraternity and the grand custom of Hong Kong’s rule of legislation,” one veteran barrister informed Reuters. “For all of the pressures forward, we actually wanted them and I concern what comes subsequent.”
In an announcement on Wednesday, Hong Kong Legislation Society president Chan Chak Ming urged Reed and Hodge to rethink their strikes, expressing “deep remorse” and saying that the choice “disappointingly falls brief” of the assist among the many public and authorized group for the continued function of abroad judges.
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