Parliament: Decision to alert MPs was rational, tribunal rules
A solicitor accused by MI5 of being an agent of the Chinese government has lost her challenge to the assessment.
Christine Lee claimed her Birmingham law firm had suffered “irreparable reputational harm” as a result of the ‘interference alert’ (IA) issued by MI5 to parliamentarians in January 2022.
But the Investigatory Powers Tribunal – which produced both an open and closed judgment – rejected both public law and human rights arguments that the IA was unlawful.
The tribunal heard that Ms Lee was born in Hong Kong in 1963 and moved with her family to Belfast in 1975.
In 1994, she founded Christine Lee Immigration Consultancy Company Ltd, which primarily provided immigration consultancy services to Chinese migrants.
In 2002, Ms Lee qualified as a solicitor and transformed the company into a solicitors’ firm called Christine Lee & Co (Solicitors) Ltd (CLCo), providing a range of legal services mainly to people in the British Chinese community.
From 2004, the firm set up consultation offices in Hong Kong, Guangzhou and Beijing to provide immigration and investment advice to clients in Hong Kong and mainland China.
From the early 2000s until January 2022, Ms Lee created and supported a number of community groups which have aimed to promote political participation and combat discrimination facing the British Chinese community, and also helped set up the All-Party Parliamentary Chinese in Britain Group, which Labour MP Barry Gardiner chaired from 2011 to 2019.
On 13 January 2022, MI5 issued the IA, displaying Ms Lee’s full name and photo, to draw parliamentarians’ attention “to an individual knowingly engaged in political interference and activities on behalf of the United Front Work Department (UFWD) of the Chinese Communist Party”.
It said Ms Lee “has acted covertly in coordination with the UFWD and is judged to be involved in political interference activities in the UK”.
In the wake of the IA, Ms Lee was described as a Chinese “agent” and “spy” both in Parliament and the media. She received “racist and hateful emails to the CLCo enquiry line, which include rape and death threats”, the tribunal recorded.
Her son Daniel Wilkes, who had worked for Mr Gardiner for several years, alleged that, in response, the MP gave him an ultimatum to resign or be dismissed, which Mr Gardiner denied. Proceedings for constructive unfair dismissal were ultimately settled. Mr Wilkes was also a claimant before the tribunal.
Ms Lee denied working for the Chinese state, saying that her links with the Chinese Embassy in the UK and frequent visits to China where she met government officials were about generating business for the law firm and self-promotion – CLCo described itself as chief legal counsel to the Chinese Embassy “even though no such position exists”.
She outlined the mental and physical impacts the IA has had, including being diagnosed with severe depression and changing her name and appearance “because she lives under constant fear of being surveilled and reported on by the local and national press”.
The IA has also caused “irreparable reputational harm” to her law firm, even after she resigned her directorship and distanced herself from her associated companies.
“She says that CLCo had to deal with online abuse, the withdrawal of banking facilities and a reduction in whole areas of work, in particular CLCo’s work on behalf of asylum seekers,” the ruling said.
The firm still operates as Christine Lee & Co (Solicitors) Ltd but Ms Lee resigned as a director and owner in May 2022.
It is now run by David Ho, who told the tribunal that the Solicitors Regulation Authority launched an investigation into the firm following the IA but closed it in September 2022 with no further action needed.
Mr Ho also reported being detailed for five hours at Birmingham Airport in May 2022 and interviewed about his work for CLCo.
The tribunal – with its president, Lord Justice Singh, giving the ruling – concluded that MI5’s assessments contained in the IA, both of the facts and of the national security evaluation relating to Ms Lee based on those facts, had a rational basis. The reasons for this, however, were in the closed judgment.
Even if Ms Lee had been given prior notice of the IA and the opportunity to make representations in advance of its issue, MI5 would still have issued it, Singh LJ said.
There were no human rights breaches either. MI5 was entitled to issue the IA, “and indeed had an obligation to do [so] in order to fulfil its statutory function of protecting parliamentary democracy”.
The tribunal held that the IA was “a proportionate response to the threat posed” by Ms Lee.
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