KICK O11/1
Private Secretary
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а ми
CONFIDENTIAL
FROM:
A C Galsworthy, HKD
DATE:
18 February 1985
CC:
PS/PUS
PS/Mr Luce
Sir W Harding
Dr Wilson
Mr Burrows, Legal Advisers
Mr Fifoot, Legal Advisers
Mr Houston
HONG KONG: AMENDMENTS TO LETTERS PATENT
47
1.
Your minute of
of 18
18 February raises the issue of the Governor's
concern that a determined Chief Executive might use repeated dissolution of LEGCO to frustrate the legislature.
2.
We have discussed this with Mr Fifoot of the Legal Advisers.
Mr Fifoot advises that the usual kind of Commonwealth constitution
works on the Westminster model, and provides for dissolution at any
time: this is true also for "one party" state constitutions (such as
Tanzania).
to
a
3. With regard to the Governor's argument that a determined Chief Executive might frustrate the legislature by repeated dissolutions, Mr Fifoot has observed that the clearest constitutional precedents
for a Chief Executive who seeks to frustrate the legislature are be found not in the Commonwealth but the British constitution: Chief Executive reliant upon the legislature to pass his money bills would be no more able to dispense with that legislature than was
Charles I. I think this is the answer:
SO long as it is the
legisature which
which has the power to pass the legislation, the Chief
CONFIDENTIAL