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Foreign judge quits Hong Kong top court

蘋果日報 2020/09/18 16:00


A foreign judge has stepped down in the middle of his third three-year term with Hong Kong’s top court, following his reappointment by Chief Executive Carrie Lam in July last year.
Polish-born Australian James Spigelman is no longer a non-permanent judge with the Court of Final Appeal, after Lam withdrew her appointment in an order issued on Friday and backdated to Sept. 2, the day he resigned. Her announcement was gazetted on Friday.
The revelation meant Spigelman had quit a day after Lam declared that separation of powers between the executive, judicial and legislative arms of government was non-existent in Hong Kong. The Chinese government’s nationalistic assertiveness and ever-tightening grip on the city had also fueled debate about the role of foreign judges in the local judiciary.
Spigelman was cited as saying that his decision to resign was related to the content of a national security law passed by Beijing, according to a tweet from Stephen Dziedzic, foreign affairs reporter at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Beijing passed the law on Hong Kong’s behalf on June 30 to crack down on acts of secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces.
In response to media enquiries, the Chief Executive’s Office said that Spigelman resigned on Sept. 2 without naming a reason, so Lam revoked her appointment of him according to section 42 of the Interpretation and General Clauses Ordinance (Cap. 1).
The appointment in 2019 was made under section 9(2) of the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal Ordinance (Cap. 484), according to the gazette.
The section states that the list of judges from other common law jurisdictions “shall consist of judges appointed by the Chief Executive acting in accordance with the recommendation of the Judicial Officers Recommendation Commission.”
Spigelman was born in Sosnowiec, Poland, in 1946 and migrated with his family to Australia as a refugee in 1949. He obtained his Bachelor of Arts and law degrees from the University of Sydney. From 1972 to 1976, he served as senior adviser and principal private secretary to the Australian prime minister, Gough Whitlam.
Beginning his legal practice as a barrister in 1980, Spigelman was appointed Queen’s Counsel in 1986. Between 1998 and 2011, he was chief justice of New South Wales and sat as a judge of the Supreme Court of Fiji on a constitutional case over the legal legitimacy of the Fiji government. He was appointed ABC chairperson in 2012, in a role that saw him express concern over the effect of anti-discrimination laws on freedom of speech.
Spigelman’s tenure as a non-permanent judge of Hong Kong’s Court of Final Appeal started in April 2013, as he continued his practice in international commercial arbitration. His term of office has been twice extended, with the third three-year term granted on 29 July 2019, the Hong Kong Judiciary Annual Report 2019 shows.
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