Risks ?…
Let’s be honest, and we hasten to add, we respect the HK judiciary compared to that lilly livered law society who capitulated to Beijing many many moons ago.
It was all over about 18-24 months ago. The protests put the frightners on Beijing and very quickly and quietly they speeded up their control on the police and judiciary.
This is a well felt open letter but it should have been written and acted upon 5 years ago.
Reuters report
“The independence of the judiciary, a pillar of Hong Kong, risks becoming a charade, at the beck and call of the Chinese Communist Party,” the lawyers said.
“Hong Kong’s rule of law and basic freedoms, at the heart of the principle of ”one country, two systems“, now face grave threats.”
They described the 2014 democracy demonstrations as “one of the most peaceful public protests the world has seen”.
A series of court cases against about 100 young democracy activists has, however, shaken confidence in the city’s vaunted rule of law and critics fear a watering down of its freedoms and creeping interference by Communist Party rulers in Beijing.
The lawyers’ letter comes amid heightened criticism of mainland Chinese authorities over what some Hong Kong and international observers see as increased meddling by Beijing in the former British colony’s affairs.
Among the letter’s signatories were Geoffrey Nice, former chief prosecutor in the trial of Serbia’s Slobodan Milosevic, human rights lawyer Jared Genser who represented Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo and Kirsty Brimelow, chairwoman of the Bar Human Rights Committee of England and Wales.
Read the full letter and covering article at https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hongkong-politics-lawyers/top-international-lawyers-say-hong-kong-rule-of-law-under-threat-idUSKBN1CL0HS
