1/Strongly recommend everyone to read the transcript of @UKSupremeCourt Lord Reed's comment on his resignation from HK's Court of Final Appeal. Powerful and humble response to the legal compradors in #HK: committees.parliament.uk/oralevidence/1…
2/some quotes: "The courts themselves were continuing to operate in accordance with rule of law values, although they were under pressure. It has to be said that one cannot completely divorce what was going on in the courts from what was going on outside the courts"
3/"One was the use of powers conferred by the (NSL) to close down businesses and seize property.The other was the arrest of people on charges of having violated either the national security law or laws passed during the period of British rule concerned with sedition,for example."
4/"[I]f...you were a shopkeeper who had posted on social media your criticism of the absence of a vaccination programme in Hong Kong, you would find yourself arrested on a charge of sedition, refused bail and then liable to be detained in prison for the best part of a year..."
5/"In the light of the crackdown on freedoms to which we on the Supreme Court, and indeed our society, are committed, a stage was reached when we were in agreement that the time had come for us to withdraw. I was not under pressure from politicians. That is a mistaken reading."
6/"My own views happened to coincide, but I had formed a view that it was no longer in the interests of the Supreme Court. In fact, it was clearly damaging the interests of the Supreme Court and the respect in which it is held for us to continue." end quotes. @UKSupremeCourt
7/Note: The oral evidence of Lord Reed was dated on 6 April 2022.
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