Job No. 166880
HANSARD//JULT3:07
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1838
HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL - 13 July 1988
the Special Administrative Region would have its own education system as contrasted to the system in China, and (b) that the region should be able to formulate its educational policies on this basis, and Members consider that it should be redrafted with the addition of the words 'and may formulate its own developmental directions'. Members find Chapters V and VI to contain a fairly large number of provisions which either are matters of policy rather than law or are drafted in such a way as to make their justiciability open to doubt or their interpretation difficult. Members consider that an attempt might be made to identify those articles which touch on policy matters and to transfer them to a separate annex of policy guidelines. Another solution would be for the Basic Law to make a specific reference to the Joint Declaration thereby incorporating into the Basic Law all policy matters contained in the Joint Declaration and its annexes. Members however accept that some of the articles touch on policy matters which are so important that they would need to be included in the main text of the Basic Law in which case the question of justiciability becomes important.
(7) The political sturcture of the Special Administrative Region. Although Members find section 4, 5 and 6 of Chapter IV acceptable by the large, three points deserve some mentioning. Members note they there is no provision for extradition or rendition which can easily be included under either section 4 *Judicial Organs' or Chapter II 'Relationship between Central Authorities and the Special Administrative Region' in the case of rendition. Members are baffled by the term 'local organs of political power' in article 96 which may be legally vague and query if the effects of the articles are that the two municipal councils will cease to be independent but become consultative bodies. Members are of the view that Commissioner against Corruption, Director of Audit, Com. missioner of Immigration and Inspector General of Customs and Excise should be excluded from the list of posts reserved for Chinese nationals in article 100. These three sections on Judicial Organs, District Organisations and Public Servants respectively are unproblematic as they essentially provide for the preservation and continuation of the existing system. However, the same cannot be said of sections 1, 2 and 3 which deal respectively with the Chief Executive, the executive authoities and the legislature. This is primarily because the articles are meant to provide for a structure suitable to the changed circumstances. Our task has not been made easier by the sheer number of articles and the many and varied options appended and by a lack of time on the part of the panel. Notwithstanding, we have been able to go through these three sections article by article and have been able to arrive at a fairly large number of consensual views on specific articles. In the interest of brevity, I will save them for the report. During our deliberations, we have discovered that most of the articles in the three sections are interrelated and cannot, therefore, be considered separately. Members are now perhaps inclined that when we further study these three sections, we ought to, first of all, appraise the existing system and the changed circumstances dictated by the change in sovereighty and by the terms of the Joint Declaration, then consider the model of our future executive-legislature