The lengthy ongoing trial of Jimmy Lai, former publisher of the now-banned pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily, is on hold until November 2024. Meanwhile, though, an appealed conviction of Lai and six others on related charges has just been ratified by the Hong Kong’s Court of Final Appeal, which seems now to merely rubberstamp Chinese Communist Party tyranny.
Chris Patten, the last British governor of Hong Kong, told the Independent that the conviction is unjust and is illustrative of the “rapidly deteriorating state of the rule of law” in Hong Kong (August 13, 2024).
Mr Lai [shown above], 76, a British citizen who founded the now-shuttered Apple Daily newspaper, is facing the prospect of life in jail if found guilty of sedition and collusion with foreign powers under the national security law. He has been held in solitary confinement since December 2020.
Lord Patten…told The Guardian the “unjust verdict” against Mr Lai and his fellow accused was made worse “by the fact that Lord Neuberger, a former head of Britain’s Supreme Court, was a party to this decision”….
David Neuberger was one of five judges on the Court of Final Appeal that heard the matter, renewing the debate about whether foreign judges should continue to sit on Hong Kong’s highest court amid a national security crackdown.
Two months ago, two other British judges who had been serving on the Court of Final Appeal, Jonathan Sumption and Lawrence Collins, resigned, Sumption because, as he said, the rule of law was now “profoundly compromised” in the city. Judge Neuberger stuck around “to support the rule of law in Hong Kong as best I can.”
Patten says Neuberger’s complicity in the present verdict is “particularly surprising since when he was a member of the judiciary in Britain, Lord Neuberger was keen to establish that the English common law could accommodate fundamental aspects of human rights protection.”
Also see:
Independent: Video: “Jimmy Lai’s son slams British government for failing to denounce China”
“He’s currently in prison for standing up for the democratic values that are the very foundation of our country.”
