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HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 14 July 1988
in the New Territories was hard hit. Coupled with the fact that Hong Kong's economy was not doing well, many indigenous villagers had to leave their homes for employment opportunities in far-away western Europe, mainly Britain and Holland, to make a living. These people got foreign passports to facilitate their work and daily living, but I must point out that these people still retain ownership of their lands and properties in the New Territories in Hong Kong. These people and Hong Kong go back a long way. They have been in Hong Kong for generations. Hong Kong is where their roots are. One day they may come back to the New Territories. The existing system recognises and safeguards the indigenous villagers and their children in that those holding foreign passports would still be entitled to their traditional rights when they come back to settle in their villages of origin. But what is going to happen after 1997, that is, after the sovereignty of Hong Kong is resumed by China. Will their traditional rights continue to be safeguarded? This is a very problem because many representatives of overseas indigenous villagers expressed their worries about this matter when they were talking to me, and so for this reason I feel that the Government must look into this problem and come up with a solution to it so as to remove the anxiety of the many overseas indigenous villagers.
Sir, with these remarks I support the motion.
MR. EDWARD Ho: Sir, the draft Basic Law is entitled 'for solicitation of opinions. Therefore, whether it will be regarded as a 'good' draft will depend on how much response it can generate; and subsequently, what important opinions will be taken into account by the drafting committee when it works on the revision of the draft.
4/5.6.
That the draft Basic Law will have achieved its objectives of soliciting opinions is to be expected. On this I do not agree with Mr. Martin (Lee The Ro consultative period has been divided into five phases in accordance with the contents of the draft, and although it is now just the beginning of the third phase, a vast amount of opinions from all sectors of our community covering all aspects of the draft have already been expressed.
Amongst these opinions, some major problems perceived by the Hong Kong people have been more prominently and universally discussed and expressed. There are, for instance, doubts as to whether the promised high degree of autonomy will indeed be given, and whether civil liberties will be effectively entrenched in the Basic Law. Al these problems have been adequately enumerated by Mr. Andrew WONG when he presented the preliminary consensual views of the Constitutional Development Panel which studied the Basic Law. In addition, articles 18 and 169 have also been dealt with in some detail and ably by Mr. Martin LEE in his speech. These views have my full support and I shall therefore not be devoting further time to them in this debate.