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C. Legislative Requirements
Existing Powers
3. So long as the ceded areas of Hong Kong remain under
UK sovereignty or the remaining areas of the colony are held
by the UK under lease, provision for their government can be
made (as at present) under the Royal prerogative by means of
Letters Patent, Orders in Council and Royal Instructions and
the power of Parliament to legislate for them will not be
impaired.
Relinquishment of sovereignty
4. In more recent times, arrangements under which HMG
have ceased to be responsible for the government of a colony
have invariably been sanctioned by Act of Parliament, whether
the territory continued to be part of Her Majesty's dominions
as (or as part of) an independent member of the Commonwealth
or whether it became (or became part of) an independent
republic (or separate monarchy) within the Commonwealth or
a foreign state. There are nineteenth-century precedents
for the cession of territory to a foreign State by the Crown
under the Royal prerogative without an Act of Parliament,
but since 1890 the sanction of an Act of Parliament has been
considered appropriate in each case even though, as a matter
of law, it might not have been strictly necessary, and this
practice may well have assumed the strength of a constitu-
tional convention. If the UK were to agree to relinquish
its sovereignty over the ceded parts of the colony of
/Hong Kong
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