The Gavel vs. The Sanction: Hong Kong’s Judiciary Stands Firm

The verdict is in for Jimmy Lai. Convicted of collusion with foreign forces, the high-profile case hits the mitigation phase on January 12, as it races toward a final sentence. But the legal process isn't the only thing moving; the political pressure from London and Washington is reaching a fever pitch.

Former UK Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith is leading the charge, penning articles that demand sanctions against the three judges handling the Lai case. This isn't his first time in the fray. Since the 2019 Black Riots, he has been a fixture in the anti-China circuit, meeting with activists and visiting Taiwan to align with independence advocates.

British MP Iain Duncan Smith is playing hardball, pushing for sanctions against judges on the Lai case while maintaining deep ties with Taiwan independence groups.

The US isn't sitting on the sidelines either. Several hawkish senators are baring their teeth, ready to deploy the "Hong Kong Judiciary Sanctions Act" as a tool of intimidation. The bullets are chambered and ready to fire. Yet, despite the threats, Hong Kong’s judges are showing some serious backbone, standing their ground against external heat.

Duncan Smith’s drumbeat for sanctions looks like a last-ditch effort to squeeze out political leverage as the case concludes. He’s rallying the usual suspects—former Governor Chris Patten and Hong Kong Watch founder Benedict Rogers—to ramp up the pressure on National Security Law judges. It’s an attempt to flip the script at the eleventh hour.

Foreign Pressure Meets Judicial Steel

Legal insiders have dug up the receipts on Duncan Smith. Court revelations show he was a key figure behind the scenes during the 2019 Black Riots, communicating with IPAC founder Luke de Pulford about using the Magnitsky Act to sanction then-Chief Executive Carrie Lam. It’s a clear pattern of interference that dates back years.

While the prosecution also states that Lai has known Duncan Smith since 2020, seeking his help to lobby for foreign sanctions, the British politician flatly denied even knowing him in media interviews. A bold claim, one that doesn't seem to square with the evidence presented in court.

On top of that, Duncan Smith did not just sit in Westminster and commentate. During the 2019 Black Riots period, he repeatedly met Hong Kong opposition figures and “movement participants” under the banner of policy research, while in reality fanning the flames from behind the scenes. The exact part he played in that unrest may never be fully spelled out, but the pattern is clear – he was not a neutral observer, he was an active political player in a foreign city’s turmoil.

 Taiwan, Sanctions and a Political Script

Legal-sector contacts add another layer: Duncan Smith is not only a steady hand in Hong Kong destabilization, he is also tightly wired into Taiwan “independence” circles.

Last August, Smith personally flew to Taiwan to attend an IPAC “cross-national parliamentarians” symposium in support of Taiwan.  Headlined a “Stand with Taiwan: Freedom Night”, the event portrayed the mainland “authoritarian regime” as an ever-closer threat that would “destroy your independent status,” language tailor-made to cheer a “Taiwan independence” audience.

In the room, independence leader Louise Hsiao Bi-khim – now Lai Ching-te’s deputy and the number-two figure in the administration – responded with enthusiastic applause and public thanks, and Smith’s pro-“Taiwan independence” stance was on full display throughout the event.

Seen in that light, his demand to sanction Hong Kong judges is not about law; it is about politics, and hard-edged anti-China politics at that. Dressing it up as concern over supposed “judicial injustice” toward Jimmy Lai is just verbal smoke – rhetoric hiding a clear strategic aim to pressure and delegitimize Hong Kong’s courts.

Washington Hawks Load a New Weapon

Duncan Smith and his allies in London are not acting alone.

In May last year, three US senators introduced the “Hong Kong Judicial Sanctions Act,” a bill that, if acted on, would put a long list of Hong Kong judges and prosecutors – including Court of Final Appeal Chief Justice Andrew Cheung and Director of Public Prosecutions Maggie Yang – in the crosshairs of potential sanctions, turning legal professionals into political targets.

At the same time, Mark Clifford – a core member of Jimmy Lai’s inner circle and head of the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation – rolled out a report smearing Hong Kong’s judiciary, echoing these Senate hawks point for point and keeping the spotlight on Hong Kong judges and prosecutors, with the pressure dial constantly turned up.

A seasoned political insider put it bluntly: this camp is already at daggers drawn, just waiting for sentencing in Lai’s case as the trigger. When the court hands down its decision, they are expected to move again, this time with heavier blows aimed squarely at Hong Kong’s judicial sector through new attacks and lobbying.

That said, one big variable hangs over their plan – Trump. Even if Congress pushes the bill forward, whether it actually bites still depends on Trump’s calculation: if he decides he does not want to pick a fresh fight with China over Jimmy Lai, especially with a future China visit on his calendar, he can simply refuse to sign the act and leave it on the shelf.

Judges Hold Their Nerve

Whatever happens in Washington or London, one thing seems certain: the threats from US and UK hawks will keep escalating, and the pressure on Hong Kong’s judicial personnel will only grow.

Yet, as former Director of Public Prosecutions Grenville Cross has stressed: in the face of various intimidations, judges have remained unmoved throughout, dutifully performing their responsibilities and crushing anti-China forces’ schemes to obstruct judicial justice. That resilience showcases the strength and superiority of Hong Kong’s common law system rather than its weakness.

Legal friends strongly echo Cross’s view: Hong Kong judges really have stood their ground against external forces and proven themselves “resolute” in practice – a rare quality, because being put on a sanctions list is no small personal or professional burden.

Another important signal is coming from Hong Kong’s foreign judges, who have publicly backed the independence and fairness of the city’s judicial system. Court of Appeal Vice President Andrew Colin Macrae recently told a Bar Association forum that he has never seen Hong Kong judges take instructions from anyone, stressing that when they adjudicate cases, they maintain independence and fairness, and the public has reason to feel reassured by that track record.

In recent years, anti-China politicians across the UK, US, Australia and other Western countries have been leaning hard on Hong Kong’s foreign judges, trying to force them to toe a political line. Against that backdrop, Macrae’s willingness to take the heat, speak plainly and defend Hong Kong’s courts in public is all the more commendable. Clearly knowing that the blowback will come, he still chooses to speak up anyway.

Facing a storm of international pressure, Hong Kong’s judges are refusing to buckle, upholding the city’s legal integrity.

Ultimately, the judges’ resolve is anchored in the principles at the heart of Hong Kong’s judicial system. With the law on their side and the standards clear, they can meet every challenge openly and without apology—and no amount of noise or intimidation from outside forces will dislodge that foundation. They will press on, calmly and firmly, with the same quiet determination they have shown all along.

Lai Ting-yiu

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The US-Iran peace talks are turning into a roller coaster. Last Friday, Iran said it would reopen the Strait of Hormuz, lifting global hopes, but Trump quickly turned up the heat by declaring that the U.S. naval blockade on Iranian ships and ports “will remain in full force”. Iran then hardened its position at once, saying it would resume control of the strait.

In the space of two days, the whole picture changed, throwing fresh turbulence into the negotiations. Earlier this week, US Marines forcibly seized an Iranian cargo ship, pushing tensions even higher and bringing a new round of conflict to the brink.

Iran and the US now look set for a head-on clash, because whoever controls the Strait of Hormuz will hold the upper hand in this struggle. Tehran sees the waterway as a long-term trump card for resisting the US and rebuilding the country, so it clings to it tightly and will not hesitate to fight another hard battle over it.

US forces are blockading the Strait of Hormuz and intercepting Iranian vessels, supercharging the fight for control. With a fresh clash looming, peace talks face a dark, uncertain future.

For Iran, the key to victory or defeat in this campaign is whether it can keep a firm grip on the strait. That is why it will not yield a single inch. This logic has already been visible in the series of moves it made after the war began. In an April 3 article examining the US-Iran war, The Wall Street Journal quoted Vali Nasr, a Johns Hopkins University professor and former senior State Department official who has crossed swords with Iranian officials. He said: “Now, the only reason why they are surviving this war is because of the strait. The Iranian thinking is that, at the end, the strait must remain under their control because it is their only deterrence and only source of revenue.”

To keep hold of this “weapon of mass destruction” over the long run, Iran has already introduced legislation in parliament. The aim is to write toll collection in the strait into law and explicitly bar non-friendly countries from passing through.

The Wall Street Journal also interviewed another senior fellow familiar with Iranian thinking, Hassan. His reading is that if Iran controls the strait, it could in future impose selective sanctions on any country and choke off shipping through the waterway at will. That would give Tehran an open-ended bargaining chip. Even if Iran suffers heavy damage in the current war, it would still retain the capacity to threaten enemy states.

That hardline strategy is clearly taking shape. In an interview with the BBC today, Ebrahim Azizi, a member of parliament and former Revolutionary Guards commander, said bluntly: “Iran's successful ‘weaponization’ of the strait is one of our key assets against the enemy.” Iran therefore intends to keep a tight hold on the power to decide which ships may pass. In other words, it wants this waterway fully under its command from now on. A scholar at the University of Tehran said the government sees the Strait of Hormuz as Iran’s main strategic lever, and that control over it is a red line that cannot be crossed.

Trump plainly sees what Iran is trying to do. He also knows that if the US loses control of the Strait of Hormuz, it will come out the loser in this war. So he panicked and rushed into a hardline response, declaring a US military blockade on ships entering and leaving Iranian ports. More, he sent Marines to board and seize an Iranian cargo ship for the first time.

But the blockade is already showing cracks because the decision was made in haste. First, US naval vessels can only carry out interceptions in international waters far from the shores of the strait, so as to avoid Iranian attack, and that makes the operation look weak. Second, the US military cannot stop Iran’s own blockade moves. The initiative over which ships may pass remains firmly in Iranian hands. For example, the US military has no effective answer if Iran lays mines in the strait.

By continuing to blockade the Strait of Hormuz, Iran can afford to sit back and wait for the enemy to tire. It is playing a long game against the US, waiting for the right moment to strike. Trump, by contrast, now has a major headache. If the strait stays closed to navigation, oil prices are bound to surge. That will hit the US economy harder and drive up political pressure on him. He originally wanted to wrap up peace talks quickly and pull himself out of the war. Now the fight over control of the strait threatens to drag the conflict out and even intensify it, making a clean exit more remote than ever.

Faced with this mess, Trump convened an emergency meeting in the White House Situation Room yesterday. He brought together Vice President Vance, Secretary of State Rubio, Secretary of Defense Hegseth and Treasury Secretary Bessent to discuss how to deal with the impasse. But finding a smart way out will be anything but easy.

Before this latest war with Iran broke out, the Strait of Hormuz had long enjoyed free passage and relative calm. But Trump misread the situation. He thought he could smash Iran with one blow, yet instead he forced a cornered adversary to fight back. That pushed Tehran to unleash its ultimate weapon by blockading the strait, and to move at the same time toward making its control permanent. It is a consequence Trump clearly did not see coming.

Trump’s war has pushed Iran to seize the strait and lock down permanent control. By forcing Tehran's hand, he has shot himself squarely in the foot.

Trump’s habit of shooting himself in the foot has once again produced a bitter result. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently said in a US media interview that every tabletop exercise on a US-Iran conflict during her time in office predicted Iran would blockade the Strait of Hormuz. In addition, Joint Chiefs Chairman Keane had also warned before the war began that Iran was highly likely to take that step. Yet Trump chose war on instinct and ignored the trump card in Iran’s hand. That is how he ended up trapped in today’s disorder.

The most painful part is that the deadlock over control of the strait remains unresolved, while peace talks have once again hit a roadblock. Whether the two sides can return to the table is now highly uncertain. In the meantime, the world is still being forced to pay the price for Trump’s reckless war.

Lai Ting-yiu