Former High Court chief justice Robert French has defended the role of Australians serving on Hong Kong’s top court.
Former High Court chief justice Robert French has defended the decision of Australian judges to remain on Hong Kong’s top court amid intensifying concerns pressures from mainland China, saying mass resignations would further undermine the rule of law in the city.
“Continuance is a judgment call and different judges will make different judgments,” French said, adding: “For the time being engagement is preferable to disengagement.” “There can be a point it has been diminished to an effect that trials are show trials. From those I’ve spoken to, they don’t see themselves as conducting show trials,” Keane said.The position of the Australian judges contrasts starkly with Sumption’s assessment that Hong Kong was “slowly becoming a totalitarian state”, there was a “growing malaise” within the judiciary, and that “the rule of law is profoundly compromised in any area about which the government feels strongly”.
The role of overseas judges in Hong Kong has regularly been likened to “canaries in the coal mine”, with their presence serving as a litmus test of the independence of the court. Members of the public wait to enter court to hear a verdict for 47 pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong last month.The latest resignations leave just seven judges in the ranks of the court’s pool of overseas judges - three British as well as four Australians. They don’t sit together, but rather one of the foreign judges is typically rostered to sit on the five-person appeal bench, alongside Hong Kong judges.
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