Four years after Hong Kong began a sweeping crackdown against political dissent, the city is struggling to meet one of its own benchmarks in reassuring foreign investors that it remains a predictable place to do business.
Members of the business community are increasingly cautious about speaking out on anything deemed political, even while privately expressing concerns about the departure of overseas judges and judicial independence. Although business disputes typically don’t touch on national security, the fear is that it will become harder to separate money and politics.
While Hong Kong’s ranking in the World Justice Project’s Rule of Law index has slipped for three consecutive years, it remains relatively high at 23—three notches above the US. Mainland China, by comparison, comes in at 97. As recently as May, Hong Kong Justice Secretary Paul Lam praised the presence of 10 overseas judges on the Court of Final Appeal as “a very special feature” of the city’s judicial system. Speaking to an audience of Saudi businesses in Riyadh, he called them “a vote of confidence” in Hong Kong’s legal system and “a symbol and the indication of the quality of justice.”
“If the international judges all left tomorrow, it wouldn’t actually change Hong Kong’s attractiveness as an international commercial center,” Harris said.