HONG KONG (Reuters) – A proposed new law that tightens patriotic loyalty tests for Hong Kong politicians could also ensnare the city’s judges, further threatening its vaunted judicial independence, say legal scholars, lawyers and diplomats.
They warn that the so-called “negative list” – which proscribes unpatriotic acts – under the oath-taking bill is far too vague and could put judges under intense pressure if their rulings and judgments are viewed as challenging the government.
The bill, launched last month and due to be debated in the city’s legislature this week, is part of a new drive by the Chinese and Hong Kong governments to ensure only “patriots” govern the city.
Long seen as the bedrock on which Hong Kong’s freedoms and international financial status are built, the city’s independent judiciary and common-law-based legal system have grown in importance since the imposition of a sweeping national security law in June.
Diplomats, businesspeople and activists say that as various Hong Kong institutions crumble, including the legislature, local media and academia, the judiciary is the key remaining check on Beijing’s tightening authoritarian grip on its freest city.
Much of the bill involves ways that legislators and community-level district councilors can be disqualified if their oaths are deemed insincere. Such moves are expected to pave the way for mass disqualification of the pro-democracy politicians who humiliated the pro-Beijing camp when they won district polls by a landslide in 2019.
But as the city’s ranks of judges, including leading foreign jurists, must take oaths to Hong Kong under long-standing requirements, they also come under the sweep of the legislation.
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Concerns mount that new Hong Kong law on patriotic oaths could trap judges
