Former top UK judges resign from Hong Kong court amid China crackdown

Two of Britain’s most high-profile former judges have resigned from Hong Kong’s top court as China continues its years-long crackdown on political dissent in the territory.

Lord Jonathan Sumption and Lord Lawrence Collins, both former UK Supreme Court judges, told the Financial Times they had resigned as non-permanent judges on the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal this week.

Sumption, who was appointed to the court in 2019, said he would make a statement “in due course” about the reasons for his resignation, while Collins cited the “political situation”.

“I have resigned from the Court of Final Appeal because of the political situation in Hong Kong, but I continue to have the fullest confidence in the Court and the total independence of its members,” Collins, who was first appointed to the court in 2011, said.

Human rights groups have criticised western judges who have continued to serve on Hong Kong’s apex court following Beijing’s imposition of a sweeping national security law in 2020 that suppressed civil liberties in the city.

A Hong Kong court last week convicted 14 people of conspiracy to commit subversion in what is the territory’s largest national security trial. The 47 defendants in the case include some of the city’s most prominent political activists. Conspiracy to commit subversion can be punished with sentences of up to life imprisonment.

The resignations came after two of Britain’s most senior current judges, Supreme Court justices Lord Robert Reed and Lord Patrick Hodge, stepped down from the Hong Kong court in 2022. 

Lord Reed said at the time that he had agreed with the UK government that members of the Supreme Court could not continue to sit in Hong Kong without appearing to endorse an administration that had “departed from values of political freedom, and freedom of expression”.

Non-permanent overseas judges have been a fixture of Hong Kong’s top court since the territory’s handover from British to Chinese rule in 1997. The court’s current bench includes senior former judges from three key common law jurisdictions — the UK, Australia and Canada — with eight remaining after the departure of Sumption, 75, and Collins, 83, according to the court’s website. 

Beijing’s crackdown has in effect snuffed out dissent in Hong Kong, with many political activists jailed and others in exile. In March, the Hong Kong government enacted its own local national security law, increasing penalties for offences such as sedition.

Last month, a report by the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation, a charity based in the US and UK, accused the foreign judges on its highest court of lending “their prestige to a justice system that has been undermined and co-opted by Beijing”.

Hong Kong chief justice Andrew Cheung noted “with regret” the resignations, saying the city’s judiciary was committed to “upholding the rule of law and judicial independence”.

“Suitable candidates from overseas common law jurisdictions will continue to be appointed,” Cheung said in a statement.