Why do magistrates from a democratic country continue serving as overseas judges in Hong Kong, where they participate in the CCP’s repression?
by Mark Tarrant
Jailed media tycoon Jimmy Lai’s national security law trial recommenced in Hong Kong on 14 August 2025.
Not content to have Jimmy Lai, Australian Gordon Ng, and other democrats locked up in Hong Kong’s jails, on 25 July 2025 the Hong Kong government led by sanctioned human rights abuser Chief Executive John Lee offered HK$200,000 bounties for the arrest of 15 of the 19 overseas activists involved in the “Hong Kong Parliament,” an offshore pro-democracy group designated as a “subversive organisation” under the Beijing-imposed Hong Kong national security law.
Four activists face HK$1 million bounties, including Australian Kevin Yam and Ted Hui. Chief Executive John Lee has called them “street rats” who “live in fear,” and has vowed to “exhaust all means” to pursue them.
This is what Australian Gordon Ng had to say about Hong Kong’s national security law, before he was sentenced on 19 November 2024, to 7 years and 3 months imprisonment for advocating for democracy in Hong Kong: “Do I think I have committed a crime? I don’t, I absolutely don’t. Therefore, I have decided not to plead guilty.”
The three Australian non-permanent judges at the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal, William Gummow, Patrick Keane, and James Allsop, believe Gordon Ng has committed a crime.
After all, they have each sworn a Hong Kong Judicial Oath of office to “bear allegiance to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China” and to “serve the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region… in full accordance with the law,” including applying the draconian national security law.
Judges Keane and Allsop both swore their Judicial Oaths before Chief Executive John Lee, who was already sanctioned for human rights abuses by the first Trump administration when he was Hong Kong’s Secretary for Security, including:
- for being involved in the “development, adoption, or implementation” of the national security law,
- for “coercing, arresting, detaining or imprisoning individuals” under the national security law, and
- for introducing “a new police unit dedicated to enforcing” the national security law.
Last year, I organised protests against Judge Keane when he spoke at the Supreme Courts in Sydney and Brisbane.
As Judge Keane wrapped up his speech “Christian Inspiration with Constitutional Insights” at Sydney’s Supreme Court on Tuesday evening, 22 October 2024, by bad-mouthing Donald Trump, the US Republican Party voters both past and present, downstairs, a handful of Hong Kong democracy protestors stood silently in Queens Square.
Judge Keane, having sworn his Judicial Oath before a sanctioned human rights abuser to apply Hong Kong’s national security law, explained inside Sydney’s Supreme Court: “Franklin Roosevelt said of the social welfare program of the New Deal that it was ‘as old as Christian ethics, for its ethics are the same … It recognizes that man is his brother’s keeper, insists that the labourer is worthy of his hire, and demands that justice shall rule the mighty as well as the weak.’ I suspect many Republican voters in the United States at that time would have disagreed with FDR. I have little doubt that the bulk of today’s Evangelical Christians who enthusiastically support the Republican candidate for President would regard FDR’s words as wicked heresy. For many other Christians, it may seem a world-class irony that American Evangelicals might well re-elect as their President a proud and untroubled stranger to the most basic Christian notions of continence and compassion.” The judge, however, did not offer an evaluation of the “notions of continence and compassion” of Xi Jinping and those aiding and abetting him.
As dusk fell on Queens Square, just behind the protestors who were silently praying for democracy in Hong Kong, the bells of St James’ Church started ringing. Judge Keane slipped out of the courtside door, tipped off, and was unwilling to face the protestors.
As Judge Keane fast walked along Macquarie Street, a middle-aged Hong Kong gentleman caught up and asked, “You know Jimmy Lai? He’s in jail in Hong Kong.” Speechless and waving his right hand, Judge Keane replied, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please, please,” before quickly turning on his heels.
Fresh from its outing in Queens Square, the protestors drove the life-size “Jimmy Lai in Chains” neon artwork 565 miles to Queensland for Judge Keane’s speech on “Constrained Compassion” at Brisbane’s Supreme Court on Thursday evening, November 14, 2024.
QE II Courts of Law security ordered the neon sign away from the main entrance and to the side of the public square.
An electrical storm was brewing as the Jimmy Lai neon sign animated from a free entrepreneur possessed with Hong Kong’s animal spirits to being bound in neon chains under the national security law.
Our “Jimmy Law Behind Bars” screen-print posters fluttered in Brisbane’s warm, humid air. With a loud crack and bang, the storm broke out with zig-zag lightning directly above the courts, and security came out to snap photos of the display. Neon Jimmy Lai continued to animate in puddles of rainwater.
Refreshed by after-speech drinks in the Portrait Gallery, Judge Keane, a Brisbane native, exited the Supreme Court building, walking right past Jimmy Lai with a pink neon “HONG KONG” above Jimmy’s head and a yellow neon “PRISONER OF CONSCIENCE” at his feet.
As Judge Keane strode along George Street, a diminutive middle-aged Hong Kong lady protester asked him: “We are Hong Kong people… we are concerned about the situation in Hong Kong. As you are flying in as a judge in Hong Kong, what do you think about Jimmy Lai’s case?”
Judge Keane replied, “If I sit on the case, I will decide it as best I can.”
That is, Judge Keane would apply the national security law.
The lady protester continued, “Do you think you need to confirm with the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] about… do you think they would give you pressure about the final judgement?’
Another diminutive middle-aged Hong Kong lady protester asked Judge Keane, “Do you think that’s a question of integrity?”
Holding up his left hand, Judge Keane replied, “Look, I’m sorry I can’t help you.” Then, his escort whisked him into a secure building, while a ‘Free Jimmy Lai’ portrait was held next to the disappearing judge.
These were not off-the-cuff remarks by Judge Keane.
In an email response to Australia’s public broadcaster, SBS Cantonese, he described the questioning by the two diminutive middle-aged Hong Kong ladies as a “confrontation.”
For exercising their right to free speech in Australia, the protestors risk arrest if they travel to Hong Kong, while Judges Gummow, Keane, and Allsop can freely enter Hong Kong.
The Hong Kong government “vehemently condemned” our Sydney protest, describing it as “despicable” and “a reprehensible act undermining the rule of law of the SAR.”
Speaking at the ceremonial opening of the Hong Kong Legal Year on 20 January 2025, Chief Justice Andrew Cheung and Secretary for Justice Paul Lam criticised our Australian protests: “The orchestrated harassment and pressures to which some of our overseas judges have recently been subjected are deplorable…”
“He said it was most regrettable that there were attempts from overseas to exert improper pressures on foreign judges to dissociate themselves from the Hong Kong court.”
Listening to the Hong Kong Chief Justice and Secretary for Justice condemn our Australian free speech protests, were Judges Gummow, Keane, and Allsop on stage in judicial regalia, wearing their Companion of the Order of Australia medals ensigned with the Crown of St Edward in full colour. At the same time, Jimmy Lai, Australian Gordon Ng, and other Hong Kong Democrats remain locked up, out of sight.
Our family has had a Tarrant living continuously in Hong Kong since 1959, when our parents moved from Malaya to the colony, where two of my brothers were born. One could say the Tarrants have Hong Kong flowing in their veins.
Australian Judge James Spigelman did not wish to apply Hong Kong’s national security law. A child of Holocaust survivors, Judge Spigelman helped protect the Hong Kong people when he quit the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal on 2 September 2020, the day after the then Chief Executive Carrie Lam announced that Hong Kong no longer had an independent judiciary following the commencement of the Beijing-imposed national security law on 30 June 2020.
When the Council of Chief Justices of Australia and New Zealand meets later this year, it will consider my submission that a section be added to the Guide to Judicial Conduct regarding Australian and New Zealand judges working for abusive regimes such as the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China.
If accepted, I will call the new section the “Hong Kong 47” amendment, dedicated to Hong Kong’s jailed prisoners of conscience, including Jimmy Lai and Gordon Ng.
Mark Tarrant grew up in Hong Kong and practices as a lawyer in Sydney. He also represented pro bono (i.e., for free) Drew Pavlou, the student University of Queensland expelled for his public criticism of the CCP.
