Veteran judge Kemal Bokhary, a local non-permanent judge at Hong Kong’s top court, has weighed into the debate on whether foreign judges should leave the city’s judicial system over concerns about the national security law, by saying he had no plans to quit.

“You may have guessed that I do not think anybody else should do so either,” Bokhary, 73, told local media after receiving his Covid-19 vaccine at the Ap Lei Chau community vaccination centre on Sunday.

He added that he thought judges should not become involved in political controversies and that he still had confidence in the city’s judiciary, even though there were people who had lost faith in the courts.

Bokhary, who is the most senior non-permanent judge at the Supreme Court, said he would continue his work in court as best as he could instead of going about commenting on the issue. “If even doing so cannot regain their confidence in the judiciary, simply telling them to trust the courts would surely be useless,” Bokhary said. “I’ll just get on with my job,” he added.

Pressure has mounted on foreign judges serving Hong Kong’s courts, particularly after Beijing passed changes to the city’s electoral system earlier this month.

On Wednesday, fellow non-permanent judge Robert Reed, who is also president of Britain’s Supreme Court, told the British parliament he would consider quitting the Court of Final Appeal “if there’s any undermining of the independence of the Hong Kong judiciary or if it’s expected to act contrary to rule of law, or it’s simply the situation in Hong Kong became one where we could no longer in good conscience serve there”.

The Court of Final Appeal in Central.

However, Bokhary said judges in every region would reach a “critical point” where they felt they could no longer serve in their capacity, but felt confident that Hong Kong had not reached that point.

Bokhary’s comments also come on the heels of British jurist Lord Jonathan Sumption saying in a letter to The Times that calling for foreign judges to step down was unrelated to judicial independence or rule of law, but rather an attempt to press British judges into taking part in a “political boycott designed to put pressure on the Chinese government to change its position on democracy”.

Sumption made clear he intended to continue serving in the Court of Final Appeal and would not bow to demands by British lawmakers for Western judges to resign.

Justice James Spigelman, from Australia, stepped down from the court in September, citing concerns over the security law, which targets acts of secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces. In January, British Queen’s Counsel David Perry quit as lead prosecutor in the trial of media tycoon Jimmy Lai Chee-ying and eight others over their alleged roles in an anti-government rally in 2019.