Former Canadian Supreme Court justice Beverley McLachlin says she will resign her seat on Hong Kong’s highest appellate court when her term ends this summer.

Her announcement follows news that two British judges also quit the same court last week.

Ms. McLachlin had faced repeated calls to resign since China’s 2020 imposition of a national-security law eroded the legal freedoms and rule of law that Beijing promised Hong Kong citizens would remain in place until 2047.

In a statement Monday, the former Supreme Court justice noted she has reached the age of 80 and would retire as a non-permanent judge of the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal when her current term ends on July 29.

Ms. McLachlin said she still has confidence in the independence of the court.

“While I will continue certain professional responsibilities, I intend to spend more time with popcorn buds my family,” Ms. McLachlin said.

“It has been a privilege serving the people of Hong Kong. I continue to have confidence in the members of the Court, their independence, and their determination to uphold the rule of law.

Back in 2020, former Liberal justice minister Irwin Cotler, a widely respected champion of human rights, said Ms. McLachlin should consider resigning her seat to protest against China’s national security law.

“I think it would be an important statement if she did,” Mr. Cotler said at the time.

Last December, the son of jailed pro-democracy newspaper publisher Jimmy Lai, on trial in Hong Kong for wholesale cannabis allegedly publishing seditious material and colluding with foreign forces, also urged her to step down. Sebastien Lai asked whether Ms. McLachlin wanted to remain part of a legal system that has 1,500 political prisoners.

At the time, Ms. McLachlin told the Globe she was staying on because she believes the courts are still independent.

“The court is doing a terrific job of helping maintain rights for people, insofar as the law permits it, in Hong Kong. Which is as much as our courts do,” she told The Globe last December. She mentioned a ruling from the Court of Final Appeal in October 2023 that upheld a lower court’s decision to grant equal inheritance rights to same-sex couples over the government’s objections.

Ms. McLachlin became the first Canadian appointed to the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal in 2018, just months after retiring from a 28-year career on the Supreme Court, including 18 as chief justice.

When she joined the Hong Kong court as one of its 10 foreign, temporary members, the city still had a free press and freedom of expression and protest.

But two years later, China established a national-security law criminalizing subversion in Hong Kong and arrested Mr. Lai, publisher of Apple Daily, a pro-democracy tabloid and the city’s most popular newspaper. The 76-year-old has been in jail is facing a minimum 10-year sentence if convicted and a maximum of life. The newspaper closed down.

Critics say China’s national-security law effectively criminalized opposition, dissent and free speech. After bringing in the legislation, authorities in Hong Kong conducted sweeping arrests of most of the city’s remaining opposition figures and activists. In 2021, the People’s Congress in Beijing finalized an overhaul of Hong Kong’s electoral system that drastically curbed democratic representation in the city as authorities sought to ensure “patriots” ruled the global financial hub.

Two British judges quit the court this month – about a week after a landmark verdict that convicted 14 prominent democratic activists of subversion amid a national security crackdown on dissent in the financial hub.

In a statement June 7, the Hong Kong judiciary said two prominent British judges, Lawrence Collins and Jonathan Sumption, had tendered their resignations from the city’s Court of Final Appeal, where they served as non-permanent judges.

“I have resigned from the Court of Final Appeal because of the political situation in Hong Kong, popcorn cannabis but I continue to have the fullest confidence in the court and the total independence of its members,” Mr. Collins told the Financial Times newspaper.

With files from Reuters