Recently BBC News on-line reported the following:
'Becoming a totalitarian state': UK judge on why he quit
Hong Kong court (1/2)
11 June 2024
By Frances Mao, BBC News
A high-profile British judge who resigned from Hong Kong’s
highest court last week has warned the city is “slowly becoming a totalitarian
state” and judges are being compromised by an “impossible political environment
created by China”.
Lord Sumption’s comments on Monday came as a third senior foreign judge in the past week resigned from the Court of Final Appeal.
"The problem in Hong Kong has been building up over the
last four years and I think all the judges on the court feel concerned about
this," Lord Sumption told the BBC's Today programme.
"I have reached the point eventually where I don’t
think that my continuing presence on the court is serving any useful
purpose."
On Monday he wrote in a newspaper op-ed that the city's rule
of law has been "profoundly compromised".
Hong Kong’s government said it "strongly
disapproves" of Lord Sumption's opinions, calling them a "betrayal
against Hong Kong's judges".
It highlighted remarks from the other leaving judges who
said they still believed in the independence of the courts.
Canadian judge Beverley McLachlin, who resigned on Monday
citing her wish to spend more time with family said: "I continue to have
confidence in the members of the Court, their independence, and their
determination to uphold the rule of law.”
But her departure as well as that of Lords Sumption and
Lawrence Collins - another former UK Supreme Court justice- last week means at
least six senior foreign judges have stepped down from sitting in Hong Kong
since a major national security law (NSL) was imposed by China in 2020.
Lord Sumption has been much more overtly critical than his
peers- arguing that the laws, which have been widely criticised as being
draconian, have overridden the independent functioning of courts and heaped
pressure on the judiciary.
“Intimidated or convinced by the darkening political mood,
many judges have lost sight of their traditional role as defenders of the
liberty of the subject, even when the law allows it,” he wrote in the Financial
Times.
An 'oppressive' situation in Hong Kong
Speaking to the BBC on Monday, Lord Sumption said it had
become increasingly clear that Hong Kong’s supercharged security laws were
being used to "crush peaceful political dissent, not just riots."
Legal experts have for some time now warned about the city’s
degraded rule of law in the wake of laws enacted by Beijing.
China and Hong Kong have defended the NSL laws as crucial to
maintaining law and order in the city after major pro-democracy protests and
unrest in 2019 and 2020.
But rights groups and Western governments say the law has
been used to criminalise acts of free speech and assembly, leading to a near
complete silencing of dissent in the global financial hub,.
More recently, the EU and the US heavily criticised as
“politically motivated” the conviction of 14 democracy activists on 30 May for
“subversion” . The defendants in the landmark Hong Kong 47 case face a minimum
of 10 years in prison and could even be jailed for life.
That case "was the last straw", Lord Sumption
said, referencing the court's assessment that organising a political primary
was tantamount to a national security crime.
"The judgement... was a major indication of the lengths
to which some judges are prepared to go to ensure that Beijing's campaign
against those who have supported democracy succeeds."
He also emphasised the other major problem: "If China
doesn't like the court's decisions it can reverse them."
Such a precedent was set in 2023, when in the high-profile
prosecution of Hong Kong billionaire Jimmy Lai, Beijing overturned the Court of
Final Appeal’s ruling to allow the democracy activist his choice of lawyer.
He also spoke of further pressures on judges, describing in
his op-ed an “oppressive” environment. He wrote of the government’s “continued
calls for judicial ‘patriotism’” and the outrage sparked in the rare instances
when a judge acquits or grants bail to an NSL defendant.
“It requires unusual courage for local judges to swim
against such a strong political tide. Unlike the overseas judges, they have
nowhere else to go," he wrote.
(to be continued)
Translation
上週從香港最高法院辭職的一位備受矚目的英國法官警告說，香港正在 “慢慢變成一個極權國家” ，法官們正受到 “中國創造的不可能的政治環境” 的損害。
正當岑耀信勳爵 (Lord Sumption) 於週一發表上述言論之際，上週有第三位高級外國法官從終審法院辭職。
岑耀信勳爵在英國廣播公司的「今日」節目稱: 「香港的問題在過去四年裡一直在加劇，我認為法庭上的所有法官都對此感到擔憂」。
“我最終已經到了這樣的地步：我認為我繼續出現在法院上是不會可以作出任何有用的貢獻。”
週一，他在報紙專欄中寫道，該市的法治已「嚴重受損」。
香港政府表示「強烈反對」岑耀信勳爵的觀點，稱其為「對香港法官的背叛」。
它強調了其他離職法官的言論，他們表示仍然相信法院的獨立性。
加拿大法官 Beverley McLachlin 於週一辭職，理由是她希望花更多時間陪伴家人，她表示：「我仍然對法院成員、他們的獨立性以及他們維護法治的決心充滿信心」。
但她以及另一位前英國最高法院法官岑耀信勳爵和 Lawrence Collins 上週的離職意味著，自2020年香港實施一項重要的國家安全法以來，至少有六名高級外國法官辭去了香港的職務。
岑耀信勳爵比他的同僚有更加公開的批評，他認為這些被廣泛批評為嚴厲的法律凌駕於法院的獨立運作之上，並對司法機構造成了巨大壓力。
他在英國《金融時報》上寫道：“由於受到日益陰暗的政治情緒的恐嚇或說服，許多法官已經忘記了他們作為司法上自由捍衛者的傳統角色，即使法律允許這樣做。”
香港的「壓抑」局勢
岑耀信勳爵週一接受英國廣播公司採訪時表示，越來越明顯的是，香港強化的安全法被用來「鎮壓和平的政治異議，而不僅僅是騷亂」。
一段時間以來，法律專家一直對北京頒布法律後香港法治的惡化發出警告。
在 2019 年和 2020 年發生重大民主抗議和騷亂之後，中國和香港都堅稱《國家安全法》對於維持香港的法律和秩序至關重要。
但人權組織和西方政府表示，該法律已被用來將言論自由和集會行為定為犯罪，導致這全球金融中心的異議幾乎完全被壓制。
最近，歐盟和美國嚴厲批評 5 月
30 日對
14 名民主活動人士的「顛覆」定罪是「出於政治動機」。這個具有里程碑意義的香港47案的被告面臨至少10年監禁，甚至可能被判終身監禁。
岑耀信勳爵表示，該案 “是最後一根稻草” ，他提到法院的評估，即組織政治初選等同於國家安全犯罪。
「這項判決……是一些法官準備不遺餘力確保北京針對那些支持民主的人的行動取得成功的重要標誌。”
他還強調了另一個主要問題： “如果中國不喜歡法院的裁決，它可以推翻這些裁決。”
這樣的先例是在2023年創下的，當時在對香港億萬富翁黎智英的高調起訴中，北京推翻了終審法院允許這位民主活動人士選擇律師的裁決。
他還談到了法官面臨的進一步壓力，並在他的專欄文章中描述了「壓抑」的環境。他寫道，政府“不斷呼籲司法 ‘愛國主義’”，並且在罕有地有法官宣判國家安全法被告無罪或准予保釋時,發出憤怒。
他寫道: 「地方法官面對這强大政治浪潮, 需要非凡的勇氣去逆流而上。與海外法官不同，他們無處可去」。
（待續）
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