As many of us have anticipated, the PRC’s reaction to the welcome other countries are granting Hong Kong people is to increasingly impose exit controls. These new controls will be internationally challenged, of course, both legally and politically. 1/n https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/concern-over-proposed-hong-kong-law-that-could-bar-anyone-from-leaving

They are already being challenged by the Hong Kong Bar Association, which is itself under attack.

While the PRC is ostensibly not limiting Hong Kong’s independent courts, of course, it is doing so in practice in many ways. The proposed exit ban would not leave a role...2/4

...for consideration by the courts before exit is denied. If the Bar Association can be brought to heel, barristers will be able to make fewer effective judicial challenges to the regime’s new restrictions. And under the NSL, only certain judges can hear NSL cases. 3/4

Moreover, if those judges don’t make the decisions preferred by the regime, they can be reassigned to other work as a result of adverse political pressure. There is a kind of multifaceted pincers campaign against an independent judiciary. 4/4