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(Bloomberg) — Hong Kong’s top court is losing a third overseas judge as the city’s judiciary comes under growing scrutiny over its role in Beijing’s crackdown on dissent in the former British colony.
Beverley McLachlin, who was the Supreme Court of Canada’s longest-serving chief justice, announced Monday that she planned to retire from Hong Kong’s Court of Final Appeal when her term ends July 29.
“It has been a privilege serving the people of Hong Kong. I continue to have confidence in the members of the court, their independence, and their determination to uphold the rule of law,” McLachlin, 80, said in a brief statement.
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“While I will continue certain professional responsibilities, I intend to spend more time with my family,” she said.
McLachlin’s exit adds to the departures last week of two of her British peers, Jonathan Sumption and Lawrence Collins, with the latter saying he was resigning due to the “political situation” in Hong Kong, even as he continued to have the “fullest confidence” in the court.
Sumption, however, said the rule of law in the city is “profoundly compromised.” Writing in an op-ed in the Financial Times on Monday, he said Hong Kong is “slowly becoming a totalitarian state.”
Hong Kong has touted its appointment of prominent overseas judges to the court as a feature that testifies to its independent judiciary after it returned to Chinese rule in 1997. But critics have increasingly accused foreign judges of helping Beijing silence the city’s once-vocal political opposition even though they don’t rule on sensitive national security cases.
McLachlin, who joined the Hong Kong court in 2018, has faced calls from Canadian critics to step down amid concerns about the national security law that Beijing imposed on the territory in 2020.
In a statement, Hong Kong’s government thanked McLachlin for her “objective appraisal of Hong Kong’s rule of law,” while dismissing Sumption’s remarks as “utterly wrong” and “totally baseless.”
McLachlin said in her statement she notified Hong Kong’s chief justice, Andrew Cheung, of her decision on May 24. The departures leave only seven foreign judges on the court.
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