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protection in the Legislature. But I think you would agree that some of the criticism was justified.
4.
A second point we should probably bear in mind is that there is a marked difference between accumulated legislation and con- stitutional convention (much of which is not normally applied) and putting everything together in a form which may appear draconian to the general public. In the case of Hong Kong, with the Chinese dimension, it is clearly not sufficient to
One needs to rely on the 'reasonable' application of the law. ask what would happen if a law were interpreted literally and enforced rigidly.
5. These apart, I think the main conclusion we need to draw is that we both need to focus very closely and to liaise well in
We are advance on the political implications of legislation. naturally very dependent on you to assess local political reactions. But we here may sometimes be better placed to assess political reactions at Westminster. Following the Hong Kong agreement and growing political awareness of Hong Kong issues at Westminster, it is unfortunately the case that things which would have con- stituted no more than a local political controversy in Hong Kong at an earlier stage are now much more likely to spill over into Westminster.
6.
We therefore wonder whether we should have a more general routine mechanism for consultation on draft legislation at an earlier stage. This is not a problem which occurred on the Powers and Privileges Bill, a draft of which was sent to us in early 1984, though it might have been helpful to have had a little more warning of the changes which were made in the ad hoc Committee. However on one or two other Bills, such as the Commercial Crimes Bill, we had very little advance warning and Ministers were under pressure to take a very rapid decision, with, in their perception, insufficient opportunity to consider the subject carefully and to ask questions about it.
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With all this in mind, would it be possible to include in your machinery for preparing draft legislation an extra stage which would be an assessment of the political implications of the particular legislative proposal in relation to the Agreement and public reaction. If we were given that assessment, we could feed in any thoughts about political reactions in Westminster and any- thing additional which occurred to us here on the relationship of the legislation to the Agreement. It would also give us an excellent opportunity to alert and consult Ministers well in
It would advance of any particular problem becoming public. then be for Hong Kong to decide whether any part of that political assessment should be included in the advice given to Exco.
It would be useful to have your ideas on this suggestion when you have had a chance to mull it over. As seen from here,
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