On Monday, Hong Kong’s chief justice defended the arrangement that permits the city mayor to choose judges to handle national security matters, dismissing “unsubstantiated doubts” about judicial independence.

“Criticisms of court decisions which are made without first ascertaining the facts in a case or reading and understanding the reasons for the court’s decision are as meaningless as they are hollow,” said Chief Justice Andrew Cheung Kui-nung in his inaugural statement to kick off the new judicial year on Monday, adding, “so is any unsubstantiated doubt over the court’s independence,”

“Judicial independence in Hong Kong exists as a fact.”

Cheung emphasized a special arrangement made possible by Article 44 of the Beijing-decreed law, which gave Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor the authority to choose judges to oversee national security issues.

“It is of course not my role as head of the judiciary to make extrajudicial comments on the law or its operation,” he said.

“However, it is conducive to public confidence in our judicial system to assure the community that, from the judiciary’s perspective, there is no question of the impartiality of our courts being affected by this special arrangement.”

He went on to say that the cases given to the selected judges were picked by the judiciary rather than the administration and that appointees were bound by their oath of office.

“This means that no political or other personal considerations of the judge can be entertained in the judicial decision-making process,” he said.

Hong Kong judges have been under fire in recent months, with at least five receiving threatening letters in the last three months following their handling of cases relating to the 2019 social unrest and the national security law.

Last year, Cheung decried a rising flood of attacks on judges over politically charged court cases, saying that such tactics were “completely futile and pointless” and would have no effect on the courts’ work.

He said that “attempts to intimate” or “exert improper pressure” on judges were on the rise, criticising them as “a direct affront to the rule of law and judicial independence”.

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