UK judges paid £40,000 to sit on top Hong Kong court

British judges are taking tens of thousands of pounds to sit on Hong Kong’s top court despite a pro-China crackdown on dissent in the city.

- ALEXANDER BUTLER

Five British judges are listed as overseas non-permanent judges for Hong Kong’s Court of Final Appeal and can be selected at any time to sit on appeal cases, for up to a month at a time.

They are paid £40,000, with flights, accommodation and travel also expensed, according to a freedom of information request seen by The Independent.

British judges have sat on the court since 1997 on a nonpermanent basis as part of an agreement when the city was handed back to China by the UK. The intention was to help preserve the rule of law, provide expertise to local lawyers and reassure businesses and financial markets.

The judges, who are all retired from their UK roles, are Lord Leonard Hoffmann, Lord Jonathan Sumption, Lord David Neuberger, Lord Nick Phillips and Lord Lawrence Collins.

More than 1,800 political prisoners have been detained in Hong Kong in a crackdown since mass pro-democracy protests in 2019 – particularly in the wake of the China-imposed national security law passed by the city’s pro-Beijing legislature in 2020. On Thursday, 14 pro-democracy activists were found guilty of charges of subversion under that law, which Amnesty International described as a “near-total purge” of Hong Kong’s political opposition.

While the British judges cannot rule on national security law cases, Lord Hoffmann and Lord Sumption have overseen cases involving convictions of activists critical of Beijing.