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which we know you have in the past
adopted the second course,
favoured, there might well be pressure in Parliament to make the
Order in Council subject to either an affirmative or negative
Parliamentary procedure, and thus to give Parliament another bite
at the cherry As you know, the advice of the Attorney-General
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is that the Order in Council must not/not be so subject: if this
were to happen we would be unable to ratify the agreement. The
view here is that
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we
cannot afford to take this risk, which would
no doubt land us in very real difficulties with the Chinese.
We think that you may wish to touch base with EXCO on this
point. Earlier this year when the problem of the date of
ratification was discussed with the Unofficials in London, they
were told of our preference at that stage for legislation
providing for the termination of sovereignty by subsequent Order
in Council, though no commitments were given on this point. We
hope that you will be able to explain to them the major
difficulties which, after further consideration of Parliamentary
handling, we now see in such a course. The major attraction for
them in using the Order in Council procedure was that it would
theoretically be open to a future government to withhold the
Order if they thought that the Chinese were not keeping to the
agreement. In fact there is not much difference between this and
the position if the Bill terminates sovereignty with effect from
1997. Termination in the Act would not be irrevocable in that it
would still be open to the Government to seek the repeal of the
Act in Parliament before the termination of sovereignty took
effect. It has to be recognised, of course, that either this
course, or the course of refusing to make an Order in Council would be an extremely drastic step. Either could be
contemplated only if there had been a a total breakdown in the
implementation of the agreement. And the practical significance
of such a step would be highly doubtful, given the inevitability
of the reversion of the New Territories in 1997.
NNNN ends
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