LegCo Members can ask a Public Officer appearing before the
Council to answer whether or not as a matter of fact submarines
were being built. Yet Members would have to stop short of
ordering the Officer to produce files in relation to why those
submarines were being built. The intention of the Bill is to
limit the Governor's power of negative intervention under
Clause 14 (2) to the protection of files relating to defence,
security and foreign policy only. It would be grossly unfair
and wrong to postulate that if Clause 14 (2) could be used to
usher in complete subordination of the legislature to the
Executive. Such a postulation is in our view based on the
assumption that the Chief Executive either now or in future
would necessarily be an authoritarian creature and that he or
she would crave for a subordinated legislature. We believe it
was further presumed that the future elected legislature will
be quite content to be subjected to such subordination. Both
assumptions, though understandable intellectually, would in
practice not hold true in Hong Kong especially in the light of
the fact that both China and Britain have displayed tremendous
efforts and sincerity in reaching an Agreement to preserve Hong
Kong's stability and prosperity. Of course one is entitled to
doubt, may be even forever, Britain and China's true
intentions towards H.K., yet if one is really so sceptical of
the Sino-British Joint Declaration about H.K. then no amendment
or deletion of any clause can satisfy that inherent stubborn
distrust.