“Grotesque.”
That’s what Lord Jonathan Sumption thinks about Hong Kong’s abuse of the law—and how it’s silencing anyone opposed to the Chinese Communist Party.
A former member of the United Kingdom’s Supreme Court, Sumption became a “nonpermanent judge” on Hong Kong’s Court of Final Appeal in December 2019.
But Sumption isn’t just any judge. He’s a famed medieval historian, and he is widely agreed to be among the best lawyers of his generation. An article in The Guardian almost a decade ago referred to him as “the brain of Britain.” He has also built a career as an independent-minded, free thinker—one who railed against Covid lockdowns and affirmative action-type quotas, but who has also fiercely criticized Israel’s conduct in Gaza. Sumption, to put it simply, is nearly impossible to define into neat partisan labels.
His role in Hong Kong was to sit on a few cases on the territory’s highest court each month to ensure they complied with the country’s Basic Law and other statutes. He told me he thought he would have a positive impact on the legal system in the territory, which used to be a British colony until it was handed back to China in 1997.
But last year, he witnessed a situation “so unattractive” he didn’t “want to be part of it anymore.”