China\u0027s meddling has ruined Hong Kong’s legal system as far as upholding civil liberties go
, an associate professor of law at the University of Reading in the United Kingdom, says the 14 part-time foreign judges on the court were supposed to provide support for Hong Kong’s British-style legal system after its links to the U.K.’s highest appellate courts were severed.
“They provided not only skills and knowledge, but also a warranty of sorts, that Hong Kong’s legal system was separate from China’s,” Sirota said. “But China’s meddling with Hong Kong’s legal system, through the national security law, voids the warranty.”Article contentLeonid Sirota, University of Reading
Sirota, a member of the Law Society of Ontario who earned his degrees in civil and common law from McGill University, believes McLachlin’s role has been compromised through Beijing’s interference in Hong Kong’s legal system, and finds her decision to not leave the appeal court perplexing. “The right thing to do for the foreign judges is to leave; the promise for which they stood is no longer being fulfilled,” Sirota said. “She ought to understand that even if she is not an active judge , her activities do reflect on her former court, and indeed on the Canadian judiciary more broadly.”
If McLachlin believes she can act as some kind of bulwark against affronts to the rule of law in Hong Kong, she should perhaps listen to some of the pro-democracy activists whose future life sentences she may be upholding in the future. Hong Kong’s rule of law is dead, as the law can be changed at will by a government that appears less inclined by the day to make the effort of pretending it isn’t Beijing’s pawn.
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