‘Legitimate reasons’ behind warning, say top judges
A lawyer accused by MI5 of working for the Chinese government has lost a legal battle against the security service after a tribunal ruled that it had “legitimate reasons” to warn MPs about her.
In 2022, Christine Ching Kui Lee, a British-Chinese solicitor, was named in a “Security Service Interference Alert” that accused her of “knowingly engaging in political interference activities” on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party.
The alert came a day after then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson apologised to MPs over the Partygate scandal.
Lee hit back with legal action, claiming that the warning was issued for a “political purpose, namely to serve the interests of the Conservative Party”.
But three judges at the Investigatory Powers Tribunal have now ruled that the alert was lawful.
Lord Justice Singh, sitting with Lord Boyd and Judge Rupert Jones, rejected both public law and human rights arguments, and found there were “legitimate reasons” for issuing the warning.
Lee previously denied the allegations against her during an earlier hearing.
Singh said: “We have reached the conclusion that the interference alert was issued in accordance with domestic law… The national security risk posed by Ms Lee was rationally assessed and the issue of the interference alert falls within the national security functions of the Security Service.”
The judges issued both an open and a closed judgment, with the open judgment spanning 40+ pages.
Lee is said to have moved from Hong Kong to the UK as a child and qualified as a solicitor in 2002. She established Christine Lee & Co (Solicitors) Ltd, a law firm with offices in Birmingham and London. It specialises in a range of practice areas, including immigration, conveyancing, commercial property, private client services, and family law.
Christine Lee & Co donated nearly £700,000 to political causes, mainly to the Labour Party and Labour MP Barry Gardiner, according to Electoral Commission records.
Speaking back in 2022, Gardiner said he had been left “shocked” by the alert. “[S]he was a well-known figure who had been feted for her community work, he told LBC radio. “I believed her to be bona fide, I believed her to be genuine.”
