10 JUL 1071
Law students' report of much value to Language committee
A report compiled by 10 law students of the University of Hongkong proved of great value to the Legal Sub-Committee of the Chinese Language Committee which studied the subject of Court Proceedings and the Language of the Law.
:
GO JUL 1971
S. C. M. P.
'DECLARE CHINESE AN
OFFICIAL LANGUAGE'
The Hongk.ng Federation of Students Language Action Committee yesterday demanded that legislation be enacted to the effect of declaring both Chinese and English official languages of Hongkong.
It also demanded that the mother tongue of the Chinese population be given an absolute status, with its usage defined in specific areas.
The committee's views were presented to the Government Chinese Language Committee at a meeting in Beaconsfield House, Central.
The Chairman, Mr James Chui, stated that the legislated declaration of Chinese as an official language was necessary to guarantee its usage.
an official
"Whereas when Chinese as language is provided for in the law, any Crown servant who fails to comply with the law could be compelled by the Court to perform his public duty.”
Mr Chui contended that status, which was a matter of respect, should be absolutely equal, whereas in the light of practicability #and technical difficulties, it might very well be true that Chinese could not attain the same level of usage as English.
But this is no hindrance to giving both
3. C. M. P.
languages equality in status."
HKFS
Mr Chui said that the wholeheartedly agreed with an extract from the third report of the Chinese Language does not Committee that "equal status necessarily imply equal use in every single instance. Status denotes the rank of one language in relation to another, whereas use concerns communication."
"But it was a sharp contradiction when it stated in the second report that it was working on the principle of giving ‘as near equality in states and usage to the Chinese language as English'.
"We believe that the matter of recognition of Chinese as an official language is a local issue and the Legislative Council is in the right position to deal with the matter without any changes in the Letters Patent and Royal Instructions."
Mr Chui said his committee agreed to the idea of giving the Chinese language “as near equality in usage as practically possible" due to understandable technical difficulties.
The Government committee was "open- minded" and "sincere" at the meeting and it promised to consider the propositions, Mr Chui added.
A VOL GR
In their report pubished yesterday, the members of the Sub-Committee said:
"We particularly want to mention the report of the Lega! Sub-Committee of the Chinese Language Study Committee to the 13th Representative Council of the Hongkong Federation of Students.
"It is obvious that they have¦ done a lot of research and have thought deeply and objectively on the subject. This is much appreciated by us. In arriving at our conclusions, we have derived considerable assistance from this report."
Mr James Chui
The students' report was drawn up after three months of intense research and interviews the practical problems involved in the use of Chinese in the Law and law courts.
on
They came to the conclusion that it would be difficult to apply Chinese in all courts, but they strongly recommended its introduction at the magistracies level as a first step.
They also favoured making Chinese and English the official languages of Hongkong, with equal status in law.
Commenting on the Chinese Language Committee's tribute, the Chairman of the HKFS Language Action Coramittee, Mr James Chui, stressed the immense importance of re- search into any social issue. He expressed the hope that the work done by the law students would set a prece- dent.
"Although I nave not been involved in the research, I'm glad our fellow students should have helped the Government Chinese Committec in its work," he added.