A senior British judge has announced she is to quit Hong Kong’s top court when her term ends, adding that there are “all sorts of question marks” over Beijing’s new National Security Law, British media reported yesterday.
Baroness Brenda Hale, the first female president of the British Supreme Court, is one of 13 foreign judges who are non-permanent members of the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal.
Unlike mainland China, where the courts are beholden to the Chinese Communist Party, Hong Kong’s judicial system remains independent and based on common law — a major reason for its position as a global business hub.
Photo: AFP
Lawyers from common law jurisdictions are able to operate in the territory, while senior judges are invited to sit in its top court, but China’s imposition of the National Security Law last year has sparked concerns in some legal circles about whether judicial independence can be maintained.
The British government is currently reviewing whether to bar its judges from serving in the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal.
Hale mentioned the impact of the security law as she announced she would not seek a second term in the court when her tenure ends next month, the Times reported.
“The jury is out on how they will be able to operate the new National Security Law. There are all sorts of question marks up in the air,” the Times quoted Hale as telling a videoconference on Thursday. “I don’t wish to be reappointed.”
Hale, who headed Britain’s top court from 2017 to last year, said that there are serious concerns about the law, but argued that the remaining foreign judges were “keeping an eye on what’s going on there,” the Times said.
Once Hale steps down there would be nine British judges in the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal. The remainder hail from other common law jurisdictions such as South Africa and Australia.
The territory’s top judge, Hong Kong Chief Justice Andrew Cheung (張舉能), has said that the judiciary remains free from political interference.
PHISHING: The con might appear convincing, as the scam e-mails can coincide with genuine messages from Apple saying you have run out of storage For a while you have been getting messages from Apple saying “your iCloud storage is full.” They say you have exceeded your storage plan, so documents are no longer being backed up, and photos you take are not being uploaded. You have been resisting Apple’s efforts to get you to pay a minimum of ￡0.99 (US$1.33) a month for more storage, but it seems that you cannot keep putting off the inevitable: You have received an e-mail which says your iCloud account has been blocked, and your photos and videos would be deleted very soon. To keep them you need
For two decades, researchers observed members of the Ngogo chimpanzee group of Kibale National Park in Uganda spend their days eating fruits and leaves, resting, traveling and grooming in their tropical rainforest abode, but this stable community then fractured and descended into years of deadly violence. The researchers are now describing the first clearly documented example of a group of wild chimpanzees splitting into two separate factions, with one launching a series of coordinated attacks against the other. Adult males and infants were targeted, with 28 deaths. “Biting, pounding the victim with their hands, dragging them, kicking them — mostly adult males,
The Israeli military has demolished entire villages as part of its invasion of south Lebanon, rigging homes with explosives and razing them to the ground in massive remote detonations. The Guardian reviewed three videos posted by the Israeli military and on social media, which showed Israel carrying out mass detonations in the villages of Taybeh, Naqoura and Deir Seryan along the Israel-Lebanon border. Lebanese media has reported more mass detonations in other border villages, but satellite imagery was not readily available to verify these claims. The demolitions came after Israeli Minister of Defense Israel Katz called for the destruction of
SUPERFAN: The Japanese PM played keyboard in a Deep Purple tribute band in middle school and then switched to drums at university, she told the British rock band Legendary British rock band Deep Purple yesterday made Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s day with a brief visit to their high-profile superfan as they returned to the nation they first toured more than half a century ago. Takaichi’s reputation as an amateur drummer, and a fan of hard rock and heavy metal has been well documented, and she has referred to Deep Purple as one of her favorite bands along with the likes of Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden. “You are my god,” a giddy Takaichi said in English to Deep Purple drummer Ian Paice, presenting him with a set of made-in-Japan
RSS