Britain to withdraw judges from Hong Kong’s top court

Britain says it will withdraw its judges from Hong Kong’s top court, saying that remaining would “legitimise oppression.”

Britain is withdrawing its judges from Hong Kong’s top court, with the Government saying on March 30 that remaining would “legitimise oppression.”

British judges have sat on the court since the former British colony was returned to China in 1997.

A national security law was imposed on Hong Kong in 2020, prompting complaints that Beijing was eroding the autonomy that had been promised when the former British colony returned to China in 1997 — and ruining its status as a trade and financial centre.

Pro-democracy figures have been imprisoned. They include Jimmy Lai, the 74-year-old former publisher of the Apple Daily newspaper, which shut down under Government pressure, and organisers of candlelight memorials of the party’s deadly 1989 crackdown on a pro-democracy movement.

The Government said it was “no longer tenable for serving U.K. judges” to sit on the Court of Final Appeal because of the increasingly oppressive laws enacted by China.

The two British judges on the court submitted their resignations on March 30.

Foreign Secretary Liz Truss says that “since the National Security Law was imposed, authorities have cracked down on free speech, the free press and free association”.