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responsibility provided that they did so within established
parameters.
During the negotiations we represented to the Chinese that Hong Kong already enjoyed de facto autonomy in its external commercial relations. We are now doing further historical research in order to
determine the extent of that autonomy and to uncover any further
documentary base for it.
6. The issue is whether the practice described above constitutes
autonomy or whether the undeveloped constitutional law of Hong Kong could be used to undermine an argument that Hong Kong is autonomous
in this field. For reasons with which Ministers are familiar, there
has been no development in Hong Kong of a ministerial system or devolution of powers to representatives of the local people with the Governor being required to act on local ministerial advice. Although the Governor is required to consult EXCO ( which has an unofficial majority) and in practice acts on its advice, the Royal
Instructions authorise him to disregard its advice.
constitutional terms, the Executive of Hong Kong, ie the government,
is the Governor there is no other source of executive power in the colony. EXCO is an advisory body and the senior office holders are
heads of a secretariat or administrative department responsible
(subject to local laws) to the Governor. The Legislature has wide powers to make laws, subject to disallowance, but it is not an executive on which powers of government are conferred.
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In
7. "Autonomous" is not a word with precise legal meaning but,
however loosely it may be used, it carries the concept of some measure of self-government or freedom of action. It would be
difficult to assert as a matter of purely constitutional law that
the government of Hong Kong, or Hong Kong (qua dependent territory) is autonomous in its external commercial relations, or indeed in any
other respect, when the Executive power of Hong Kong is vested in an appointee of the Crown who is subject to instructions from the Secretary of State. This conclusion is reinforced by a comparison with the history of other dependent territories which have progressed from a gubernatorial constitution, through stages in which their constitutions accorded various powers of self-government
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