British lawyers should not be helping Beijing crush Hong Kong’s democracy

Whitehouse Chairman, Chris Whitehouse, has made a powerful case that British lawyers should not be hiring themselves out to the repressive regime in Hong Kong to do the bidding of the Chinese Communist Party.

The article follows news that a British QC, David Perry, is to handle the political prosecution of pro-democracy campaigners in Hong Kong, including the case of high-profile pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai.

Writing on the influential political news site, CapX, Chris argues that “An experienced British QC such as Mr Perry should be able to see for himself that he risks adding a veneer of respectability to a Hong Kong legal system that is now the antitheses of the rule of law and the values that should go to the very heart of any self-respecting British lawyer.”

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab and Justice Secretary Robert Buckland have  both raised concerns about the risk of British judges facing “inappropriate pressure” while sitting on Hong Kong’s courts. Mr Raab went further yesterday, telling Sky News: “There is no doubt in my mind that under the Bar code of ethics a case like this could be resisted and frankly, I think people watching this would regard it as pretty mercenary to be taking up that kind of case.”

The Whitehouse Consultancy are political advisors to the grassroots pro-democracy organisation, Fight for Freedom. Stand with Hong Kong.

The full text of Chris’s article for CapX is here.

More information about our work for Stand with Hong Kong can be found at the following links:

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Democracy in Hong Kong “completely reversed” says legal expert

Leading Liberal Democrat MP urges boycott of Chinese goods over human rights abuses

Update [20th January 2021]: David Perry has since announced that he has now declined to take the case after all due to “pressure”, as reported widely in the world media. A report in The Guardian can be found here.

The Whitehouse team are expert political consultants providing public relations and public affairs advice and political analysis to a wide range of clients, not only in the United Kingdom, but also across the member states of the European Union and beyond. For more information, please contact our Chair, Chris Whitehouse, at chris.whitehouse@whitehousecomms.com.