4999-03-23 13:39 G.I.S
33
P. 19
0:
to
the
of
state
tatement
Could I just, following the same purport. go
interpretation. article 19 which is an article which. depending one's could have a major or minor effect, and that says with regard to courts of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. it is paragraph 2 statement 3 of article 19, the courts of the region shall obtain from the Chief Executive on questions concerning the acts This whenever such questions arise in a legal proceeding. shall be binding upon the courts. They shall have no jurisdiction
Vou now because relating to acts of state. And I just want to ask
Government People's agein there is a reference back to the central
to it comes back again for them here
the regional courts...when by
little bit further as to what rule. Will you be able to illuminate a
to the average lawyer it's constitutes acts of state, because I mean wide open.
interpretation on Governor: I would hate to try to give a judicial
two thirds that. as I said I am not a lawyer. My understanding
of majority, it fell too short of it. My understanding of the purpose
they can the present this article
to reflect as precisely as is
facts siruation in Hong Kong as that relates to acts of state and the of state. Now, there may well be arguments still in Hong Kong amongst lawyers about whether they have got the wording as exactly correct they can and the drafters are wrestling with the problem that they are be trying to put into a text of a law to be passed in Peking and to passed in Chinese concepts of the English Common Law system and that's in Hong clearly no easy Lask. So there may well still be argument Kong as to whether they've got the wording as precisely as they
to be. 19 that the What I am аз clear about, as it's possible intention of this is to reflect the present situation in Hong Kong and to continue the same system that we have got in Hong moment.
can.
Kong at the
of
0:
I
distinguished between acts hope you've
feat if I may say state and facts of state which is quite a semantic so... Is there a distinction there, could you possibly illuminate us a little bit more about that?
Governor: Basic Law.
I'm merely repeating what's in, the draft of the
and facts which has two things in it, acts of state
Pronounce state and if
you'll forgive me I should hate to ference between acts of state and facts of state.
Of
on
the
0:
is
entirely
159
very sensible. Your statement that Article
What those Declaration? consistent with
Joint the
all say
articles that Peter Temple Morris has been asking you about and particularly 159, is that... I'm sorry the Joint Declaration says.
the by
independent adjudication be a final shall
Now we've heard from final adjudication. a Secretary this morning that at the last resort, the National People's Congress will be binding on
is that
judicial Foreign of
there
Dower.
the
the findings the Court of
9