Hong Kong national security judges

In Hong Kong, designated national security law judges are incumbent magistrates or judges who are further appointed by the chief executive to handle national security offence cases at various levels of the court system.^[1] Judges without the designation as given by the chief executive are not allowed to handle these cases.^[1]

Designated National Security Law Judges
Chinese	國安法指定法官
Literal meaning	national security law designated judges
Transcriptions Yue: Cantonese Yale Romanization gwok ōn faat jí dihng faat gūn Jyutping gwok3 on1 faat3 zi2 ding6 faat3 gun1

Designation

The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress of China enacted the Hong Kong national security law on 30 June 2020. Paragraph 3 of Article 44 of the law requires national security offence cases to be handle by "designated judges".^[1]

According to the law, the chief executive should designate judges from incumbent magistrates and judges from each level of the court system to handle national security offence cases. Prior to granting the designation, the chief executive may consult the chief justice and the Committee for Safeguarding National Security. The tenure of office as a designated judge is one year.

Moreover, the chief executive is required by the law to not grant the designation to those who have "made any statement or behaved in any manner endangering national security". And the designation can be withdrawn if a designated judge makes any statement or acts in any way that is considered endangering national security.

List of known judges

The complete list of designated judges is not made available to the public as the government believes such revelation poses security threats to the designated judges.^[2] However when individual national security cases go through various legal proceedings in open court, the press and the public find out who the presiding designated judges are. Yet, those judges who have been designated but have not yet presided in open court on any national security case are not known to the public. The exact dates of the start and the end of the designation are also unknown to the public.

Here is a table of publicly known current and former designated judges and magistrates:^[2]

No.	Judges	Corresponding Courts	Notes
1	Andrew Cheung[3]	Court of Final Appeal	Chief Justice
2	Roberto Ribeiro[3]	Court of Final Appeal
3	Joseph Fok[3]	Court of Final Appeal
4	Patrick Chan[3]	Court of Final Appeal	Non-permanent Judge
5	Frank Stock[3]	Court of Final Appeal	Non-permanent Judge
6	Johnson Lam[4]	Court of Appeal; Court of Final Appeal
7	Jeremy Poon[4]	Court of Appeal	Chief Judge
8	Susan Kwan Shuk-hing[5]	Court of Appeal	Vice President
9	Carlye Chu Fun-ling[5]	Court of Appeal	Vice President
10	Derek Pang[6]	Court of Appeal
11	Anthea Pang Po-kam[7]	Court of First Instance; Court of Appeal
12	Anderson Chow Ka-ming[8]	Court of First Instance; Court of Appeal
13	Esther Toh Lye-ping[7]	Court of First Instance
14	Wilson Chan Ka-shun[7]	Court of First Instance
15	Susana Maria D'Almada Remedios[9]	Court of First Instance
16	Alex Lee Wan-tang[8]	Court of First Instance
17	Andrew Chan Hing-wai[10]	Court of First Instance
18	Johnny Chan Jong-herng[10]	Court of First Instance
19	Anna Lai Yuen-kee[11][12]	Court of First Instance
20	Stanley Chan Kwong-chi[13]	District Court
21	Amanda Jane Woodcock[14]	District Court
22	Kwok Wai-kin[15]	District Court
23	Adriana Noelle Tse Ching[5]	District Court
24	Ernest Lin Kam-hung	District Court
25	Amy Chan Wai-mun[16]	District Court
26	Ada Yim Shun-yee[5]	District Court
27	Victor So Wai-tak[17]	Magistrates' Court	Chief Magistrate
28	Don So Man-lung[18]	Magistrates' Court	Principal Magistrate (Eastern)
29	Ivy Chui Yee-mei	Magistrates' Court	Principal Magistrate (West Kowloon)
30	Veronica Heung Shuk-han[19]	Magistrates' Court
31	Andy Cheng Lim-chi[5]	Magistrates' Court

Retired judges

Judges	Corresponding Courts	Retired	Notes
Geoffrey Ma[20]	Court of Final Appeal	January 2021	Chief Justice
Wally Yeung[4]	Court of Appeal	August 2021	Vice-President
Joseph To Ho-shing	Magistrates' Court	April 2022
Peter Law Tak-chuen[17]	Magistrates' Court	October 2023

Calls for sanctions

In May 2023, the CECC called on the US government to sanction 29 Hong Kong national security judges known to be involved in cases.^[21] Hong Kong Bar Association chairman Victor Dawes said that any US sanctions against local judges could pose a "real threat" to the ability of the city to hire top-talent judges to combat a manpower shortage.^[22]