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Two of Britain’s most prominent former judges have resigned from Hong Kong’s highest court as China continues its years-long crackdown on political dissent in the city.
Former UK Supreme Court justices Sir Jonathan Saption and Sir Laurence Collins told the Financial Times this week that they had stepped down as non-permanent judges of Hong Kong’s Court of Final Appeal.
Sumption, who was appointed to the Supreme Court in 2019, said he would make a statement “in due course” about why he was stepping down, while Collins cited “the political situation”.
Collins, who was first appointed to the Court of Final Appeal in 2011, said she “resigned from the Court of Final Appeal due to the political situation in Hong Kong, but I continue to have full confidence in the complete independence of the Court of Final Appeal and its judges.”
Rights groups have criticized Western judges for continuing to serve on Hong Kong’s highest court after the Chinese government imposed a sweeping national security law in 2020 that curtailed Hong Kong’s civil liberties.
A Hong Kong court last week found 14 people guilty of plotting subversion in Hong Kong’s largest national security trial. The 47 defendants in the case include some of Hong Kong’s most prominent political activists. The subversion charge carries a maximum sentence of life in prison.
The resignation comes after two of the UK’s most senior judges, Chief Justice Sir Robert Reid and Sir Patrick Hodge, will step down from Hong Kong’s courts in 2022.
Lord Reid said at the time that the British government and the Supreme Court judges agreed that they could not continue to hear cases in Hong Kong without being seen to support a regime that had “departed from the values of political freedom and freedom of expression”.
Part-time overseas judges have been permanent judges of Hong Kong’s Supreme Court since the city was handed over from Britain to China in 1997. The current panel of judges includes senior former judges from the three major common law jurisdictions of the UK, Australia and Canada, with eight remaining after the retirements of Justice Samptimon, 75, and Justice Collins, 83, according to the Supreme Court’s website.
Beijing’s crackdown has effectively silenced Hong Kong’s opposition movement, jailing many political activists and driving others into exile. In March, the Hong Kong government enacted its own national security law, toughening criminal penalties such as sedition.
Last month, the Hong Kong Freedom Committee Foundation, a charity based in the United States and the United Kingdom, wrote a report accusing foreign judges on Hong Kong’s Supreme Court of “lending their prestige to a judicial system that has been undermined and exploited by Beijing.”
Hong Kong law enforcement officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
