UK MULLS PULLING BRITISH JUDGES FROM HONG KONG OVER SECURITY LAW

Tue 24 November 2020:

The United Kingdom’s government has begun discussions on whether it is appropriate for British judges to continue to sit on Hong Kong’s top court following China’s imposition of a national security law in the territory and the disqualification of elected legislators that Britain has said is in breach of international law.

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said on Monday that Britain is considering pulling its judges out of Hong Kong’s highest court. This has come in the wake of in its latest response to what it considers as China’s violations of its international obligations in the territory.

“This has been, and continues to be, the most concerning period in Hong Kong’s post-handover history,” Raab wrote in the UK’s latest six-monthly report on Hong Kong, which covers the six months until June 30, as well as more recent developments.

The foreign secretary noted there had been two “substantive” breaches of international law in relation to Hong Kong and the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration, which laid out the terms of the territory’s return to Chinese rule in 1997.

The first, he said, was the imposition late on June 30 of the National Security Law, broadly worded legislation which punishes acts of secession, sedition, subversion and collusion with foreign powers with a life sentence.

The second was a decision earlier this month on new rules for the disqualification of elected Hong Kong legislators, which led to the immediate removal of four pro-democracy representatives and the mass resignation of pro-democracy members a day later.

“Hong Kong’s high level of autonomy and rights and freedoms are enshrined in the Joint Declaration,” Raab said. “However, Beijing’s decisions to impose the National Security Law and then, a few months later, to disqualify elected legislators, represent two substantive breaches of the Joint Declaration in just five months. This calls into serious question China’s commitment to the ‘One Country, Two Systems’ framework.”

Britain has already moved to allow millions of Hong Kong people a path to settlement and UK citizenship, suspended its extradition treaty with Hong Kong and widened its China arms embargo to include Hong Kong. Other Western countries have also made similar moves and rights groups have expressed concern for Hong Kong’s freedoms.

Hong Kong was a British colony for more than 150 years until its return to China.

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