ས་ལ་
1
1910
HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 14 July 1988
Government that is most familiar with the local situation should not undermine China's sovereignty over Hong Kong, Actually, the Central People's Govern- ment has already formulated the ‘one country, two systems' policy to render the Hong Kong SAR highly autonomous-and many matters relating to sover- eignty that are normally handled by the Central Government are now placed under the ambit of Hong Kong SAR. For example, legislative power, power of final adjudication, the issuing of banknotes and control over immigration and emigration. If even the power to interpret the Basic Law is granted to Hong Kong SAR, it only shows the trust that the Central People's Government has in the SAR-this would boost Hong Kong people's confidence.
Article 16, paragraph 3 provides for the Committee of the Basic Law. It is responsible for deciding whether or not laws enacted in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region are compatible with the Basic Law. It is also to decide on the interpretation and amendment of the Basic Law and the applicability of national Laws on Hong Kong. It is therefore evident that this committee has far-reaching influence on the future of Hong Kong. For this reason, the composition, establishment, and the terms of office, as well as the terms of reference of this committee should be outlined in detail in the Basic Law for public discussion. And, it is hoped that most members of this committee will be people who have a deep understanding of Hong Kong.
Sir, article 9 of Chapter I, provides for the use of language. Some members of the public are worried that English will be neglected. However, it is my opinion that the provision in article 9 is already sufficiently clear that in addition to Chinese, English may also be used. We must remember that Hong Kong is a cosmopolitan city and English is used more than ever in international associa- tions, and although English has been used very widely under British rule, 98 per cent of the people in Hong Kong are Chinese ethnically. And, therefore, when sovereignty reverts to China after 1997, it is but natural that Chinese be the official language. Although English is a lengua franca in international inter- action, there are many economic giants in the world such as Japan, Germany, France and Italy that use their own language in communication among government departments as well as citizens. In Hong Kong, however, most of the government communications, minutes and other documents are written in English. I am afraid that perhaps after 1997, Chinese will not be used to a sufficiently wide extent, and the manpower and time resources needed for translation will cut down on government efficiency.
Sir, our society is changing constantly. Provisions on policy not only cannot suit Hong Kong in 40 to 50 years from now, but they cannot possibly be suitable for the Hong Kong five years to 10 years from now. Such inflexible policy provisions, such as articles 105, 107 and 142 should be deleted from the Basic Law text.
Apart from these points, there are other inadequacies and places for amend- ment in the content and drafting of the Basic Law.