By Jerome A. Cohen
Here is a disturbing report that is more than imaginative speculation. Hong Kong’s Secretary for Justice is expanding the effort of Hong Kong elite to prepare local and world public opinion to accept a new and special ”national security court” in Hong Kong as part of the forthcoming NPCSC legislation.
The CCP makes do without one in the Mainland, of course, since the Party controls all courts there. But Hong Kong’s common law system presents distinct challenges that are apparently deemed to require a distinct response. Perhaps experts informed about the secret and widely-criticized operations of the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court should be asked to advise the NPCSC or, better yet, comment in public. The FISA court oversees requests from federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies for surveillance warrants to secretly monitor alleged foreign spies inside the United States.
Will the HK court operate as secretly and compliantly as the FISA court in approving electronic monitoring, search and seizure, arrest and other sanctions? And, if foreign judges are allowed to participate in such a distinctive and worrisome court, how will they be selected and in what circumstances will they function?