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CV NEWS FEED // A Hong Kong government official has accused Western countries of putting “inappropriate pressure” on the region’s legal system, claiming that their influence has led to the resignation of several justices this year alone.
AsiaNews reported that the accusations came just days after Nicholas Addison Phillips, a British member of the Court of Final Appeal who has served since 2012, resigned on September 30.
“Phillips … is the third British justice to resign from Hong Kong’s top court in recent months and the fifth foreign justice to quit this year,” AsiaNews added.
While Phillips cited personal reasons for his resignation, other justices explicitly said the changing political scene in Hong Kong contributed to their decisions.
British judge Jonathan Sumption, who resigned from the court in June, had stated in a Guardian op-ed the same month that Hong Kong was “slowly becoming a totalitarian state.”
Hong Kong’s Deputy Secretary for Justice Horace Cheung Kwok-kwan specifically accused the United Kingdom and the United States of influencing the justices’ decisions to resign.
“In recent years we’ve noticed that some foreign countries, especially the United States and the United Kingdom, have exerted inappropriate pressure on our non-permanent judges,” Cheung said in the AsiaNews report, adding:
There were indeed some non-permanent judges deciding to quit over the past two years due to many different reasons such as personal ones. But they, including the incumbents, all had a high regard and recognition for Hong Kong’s rule of law. I hope these overseas politicians stop attacking or attempting to undermine our rule of law.
According to AsiaNews, the Court of Final Appeal is made up of three permanent judges and not more than 30 non-permanent ones who can be elected from any foreign country under Common Law.
