April 11, 2025 (London) – Today, Hong Kong’s Judiciary announced the resignation of another overseas non-permanent judge, Robert French, from the Court of Final Appeal (CFA).
Justice French is now the fifth foreign judge to resign from Hong Kong’s top court following the publication of the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong (CFHK) Foundation research report: “Lending Prestige to Persecution: How Foreign Judges Are Undermining Hong Kong’s Freedom and Why They Should Quit.”
He follows the British Lords, Nicholas Phillips, Lawrence Collins, Jonathan Sumption, and Canadian judge Beverley McLachlin. French previously served as Chief Justice of Australia before becoming a judge on the CFA in 2017.
His departure comes in the wake of the U.S. State Department’s March 31 sanctioning of six senior national security officials from Hong Kong and China for undermining Hong Kong’s autonomy and orchestrating the transnational repression of Hong Kongers overseas, including CFHK Foundation staffers Chloe Cheung and Frances Hui.
French’s departure leaves just five foreign holdouts on the CFA: the Australians James Allsop, Patrick Keane, and William Gummow, and the British Lords Leonard Hoffman and David Neuberger.
The CFHK Foundation reiterates our call for the remaining five overseas judges to immediately resign their positions, to stop giving credibility to a legal system that is playing an active role in the destruction of the rule of law and democracy in Hong Kong.
CFHK Foundation President Mark Clifford said:
“It is disappointing that it has taken five years since the imposition of the National Security Law for Robert French to do the right thing and resign. Hong Kong’s courts are no longer independent, as Beijing exercises significant control over a judiciary that is now complicit in its crackdown on freedom and democracy. The remaining overseas judges should step down from the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal due to the severe erosion of human rights, judicial independence, and rule of law in Hong Kong.”
