7.
Office should be advised to check this somewhat complicated Article very thoroughly in the light of the BNA 1948 and the
BNA 1981 to ensure that no relevant connection has been omitted.
-
(ii) Article 3 then attempts to set out which
persons will lose BDTC status on 1 July 1997. Its effect is that to give effect to the points I have mentioned in my para- graph 5 above - only those BDTCs who have that status by virtue of their having a connection with Hong Kong (as defined in Article 2(1)) and who but for that
connection would not be BDTCs, will lose BDTC status.
The category of persons who will lose BDTC status therefore includes:
8.
(i)
persons whose only connections with any Dependent Territory are connections with Hong Kong and
(ii) persons who have a connection with Hong Kong and a connection with another Dependent Territory, and whose connection with Hong Kong is a necessary element of their claim to BDTC status (those persons sometimes being referred to as 'mixed' BDTCS).
This category does not include those who, while they have a connection with Hong Kong, can still make out a claim to BDTC status by reference to another Dependent Territory, without reference to their Hong Kong connection (such persons have some- times been referred to as 'separate' BDTCs).
9. The case has been suggested of a person whose parents were BDTCs by virtue of their birth in Gibraltar, and who himself is born in Hong Kong. The position in relation to that person is that he is a BDTC by birth under section 15(1) of the BNA 1981; his claim to BDTC status contains a Hong Kong connection (birth in Hong Kong) and a connection with another Dependent Territory (his parents being BDTCs by birth in Gibraltar); and his connection with Hong Kong is a necessary element in his claim to BDTC status, his only claim under the 1981 Act being under section 15(1) and birth in a Dependent Territory being an element in a claim under that section. He is a 'mixed' BDTC, and the terms of the United Kingdom Memorandum require that such a person lose his BDTC status on 1 July 1997.
10.
It has been suggested that this is a 'hard case' that if that person had been born anywhere else in the world other than Hong Kong he would at least be a BDTC by descent, because of his parents' BDTC status; and that such a person ought not to be included in the category set out in Article 3(1). The answer is that, from a legal point of view, the UK is committed by virtue of the Memorandum to depriving such a person of his BDTC
/status
For
か。.
CODE 18-77 AWO Ltd.
7/84