Sir, Further to your report (“Top judge ‘being used’ to aid China’s agenda in Hong Kong”, News, Aug 28), it is all too clear, more than one year since the Beijing-imposed national security law, that Hong Kong’s judiciary has been stripped of its role administering true justice and has been turned into an instrument of repression. The British government has deemed Beijing to be in violation of the Sino-British joint declaration on three occasions. Hence it is unconscionable for British judges, including Lord Reed of Allermuir, to continue their involvement in Hong Kong’s courts.
As sworn defenders of democracy and the rule of law, British judges must not confer the legitimacy that the Chinese Communist Party craves while it systematically rips up the rules and treaties that it freely assumed. Lord Reed’s continued service amounts to no more than a whitewashing of Beijing’s draconian will in Hong Kong.
Alistair Carmichael MP
Chairman, all-party parliamentary group on Hong Kong
