28 MAF '85 14:27
FRON
TE H PAD10
TO FCO NEWS
PAGE.082
TRANSCRIPT B: HONG KONG SELECT COMMITTEE MEETING 22 KAR 89
7
POREICA SRGMƑTARY:
I think one has got, again, to take enormous credit for the
fact that this issue is under discussion in this context and in
Tit.
If you remember what we are actually doing, which is setting
out a constitutional document for a Special Autonomous Region on
the other side of the world from a totally different cultural
background, grafting it into the People's Republic of China...as a
matter of fact, if you look at article 19 yourself, casting your
memory back to our days as law students togetber, you wil1
recuguise almost precisely the propositions that one would have to
discuss in an English court of law.
The English legal system does provide for the recognition by
the legal system of what are known as "acts of state" in relation
to which certificates from the Executive are normally accepted as
conclusive in relation to the facts, so what we have got here is
an almst faithful reproduction of the English legal framework.
What is not yet here is a definition, workable in the
Chinese judicial system, of what is meant by "acts of state" and
it is for that very reason that this provision is not yet agreed.
I emphactco the first part of my answer. because it should
be seen as miraculous that we bave got within the framework of the
Chinese constitutional document 95 percent of the law we learned
together, leaving the 5 percent, which is always the most
difficult, still to be worked out.